Arliston is a London-based duo comprising Jack Ratcliffe (vocals/instrumentals) and George Hasbury (instrumentals/production). Specializing in evocative songwriting, the band explores themes of loss, introspection, and resilience, capturing the universal yet intimate struggles of navigating life’s transitional moments. We caught up with them following the release of their new single + music video “Disappointment Machine”.
– The concept of “tiny problems” feeling insurmountable is central to “Disappointment
Machine”. Can you walk us through a moment in your own lives that inspired this theme?
Perspective is a tool I often attempt to fend off problems with. For instance, we’re extremely
lucky to live in the UK which has (for the time being) no war, and live a comfortable life. Yet
somehow, these tiny little goblins (read goblins here as a metaphor for problems, not JRR
Tolkien goblins- thankfully the UK does not currently have this problem either) can stack on
top of each other, and create a towering, intimidating, monolith which seems impossible to
overcome. This gets amplified by the sense of guilt that you have because you know
objectively these problems pale in comparison to the troubles of others. It’s a tricky one to
shake off, and sometimes perspective isn’t the right tool to do it- sometimes writing a really
slow, sad song is.
– The imagery in your songwriting is vivid, like trying to hang problems onto a coat
hanger. How do you arrive at these metaphors – do they come naturally, or are they
shaped through reflection and editing?
I don’t know whether it’s laziness or artistic genius (actually, wait, I do know which it is), but I
have always tried to sing the melody and come up with the lyrics at the exact same time in
the booth. Melody and lyrics are such a closely intertwined thing that it feels wrong to
separate them out. However, with the disappointment machine album, I did write the majority
of the lyrics before the melody came along. This helped the songs have a much stronger
sense of narrative purpose and the metaphors weren’t as contorted (in the past I’ve been
guilty of doing a metaphor of a simile of a fictional character, and expected people to know
what the hell was going on). A standalone metaphor like the coathanger is often so much
more powerful (especially if I can actually manage to explain what it’s about within the
song!). Also, there’s a basic visual aspect to lyric writing that needs to be paid attention to.
The listener’s brain is ready to generate literally ANY concrete object or input we give them,
and it can make a song so much stronger if it has an obvious visual hook within the lyrics.
– Do you see yourselves as storytellers first or as “sad song specialists”?
I guess the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I love stories (like everyone), but sad stories are
the best ones. Not entirely sure why I feel this way. I suppose happiness is uninteresting to
me- it requires no intervention or investigation, when you are happy you are simply ‘happy’
and time flows on, unremarkably. Sadness on the other hand demands all sorts of soul
searching and active thought. I also find comfort in other people’s sad art in a way that
‘happy art’ (if there is such a thing) is unable to provide. It can be a reassuring account of
how others have navigated unhappiness and come out the other side.
– The idea of liminality – those transitional, uncertain spaces – is a recurring theme in
your work. Do you find comfort or unease in those moments and how does that come
through in the music?
Liminal moments are a bit of a bogey-man for me. That 14 second wait while you wait in a
queue, or find yourself at a traffic light. Blank time. A window of opportunity for all of the
thoughts and aforementioned goblins that you have carefully stacked in the back of your
head to come crashing into the foreground. I think this has become an increasing fear in
general, thanks to the ability of social media to fill up even the tiniest gap with multicoloured
HD ‘content’. That liminal time that in past days would have been used for reflection and
getting your psychological ducks in a row is now gone. Everyone’s ducks are very
disordered, and we are following suite.
– How do you want listeners to feel after experiencing the full journey of your upcoming
album Disappointment Machine? Is catharsis the goal or something more nuanced?
I think you’re right! Catharsis is probably the first goal of the album. That’s certainly what we
get from listening to our favourite artists. Second goal, (and this is perhaps quite a lofty goal
that we fall short of more often than we achieve), just sheer aesthetic beauty. The chills you
get from hearing a moment of musical brilliance. Thirdly, the illumination of shared human
experience is a good one. I think this is what all great art does, even if it’s some simple
Dutch still life, or Matt Berninger singing about how he owes “money to the money to the
money I owe”. Just a mirror held back up to the audience to show them they’re not alone.
– The title Disappointment Machine suggests a critique of repetitive patterns, yet the
album arc offers hope. How do you reconcile these conflicting elements?
Haha, good question! There’s potentially a conflict there, but if you zoom out and see that
while you are (mostly) destined to repeat the same mistakes, you are just as surely destined
to recover from them too. So it becomes, well, not happy exactly, but let’s say realistic.
– As your debut album release approaches, what are you most excited for fans to
discover about Disappointment Machine that they might not expect from the singles?
There are some wonderful tracks on the album that George and I have had INTENSE
arguments about whether they should or should not be a single. In a lot of ways my favourite
songs are not the singles. Tracks like Nests, Any Raft will Do, Stay in Brixton and Sleep Well
Bean are some of my favourite songs that we have ever written.
– If your listeners could take away just one lyric or moment from Disappointment
Machine, what would you want it to be, and why?
I always enjoy singing the end of Sleep Well Bean:
I would stay up, writing novels
These winding things that would freak anybody out
I should have seen the iceberg, should have seen the hurt
When the time came I was smoking way too much to
Be of use, of use
I hope it isn’t over
I understand if you cut clean
I was not James Bond I was never James Dean
If I could do it over, I’d be a little less overkeen
I wasn’t very James Bond I was Mr. Fucking Bean
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