the tower and the glory

Is Die Hard the greatest action film ever made?
Considering how they ransacked it for the name of their group, it’s no surprise to find that Dave Frecknall and Julianne Shawe are of one mind.
“Absolutely,” states Julianne. “Totally.”

“It’s a great movie,” says Dave. “Up there with Back To The Future and Robocop.”
Not for the last time, we find Nakatomi Towers acting in unison.
Dave and Julianne have previous form on the local music scene (Dave as a member of The Jane Bradfords; Julianne as part of alt-rockers Coda), but it would be a surprise if they finished the sentences of their other band-mates with quite the regularity they do so now.
In the year since Julianne answered an ad placed by Dave on a local music site, the pair have gelled into a wonderfully effective unit – producing the kind of high-end electro pop that would sound just at home in an after-hours club as it would galloping from a DAB radio at lunchtime.
In time-honoured tradition, the pair’s union was cemented by a deftly-sequenced mix tape.
“I cobbled together a load of music that I really loved,” Dave reveals, “which I thought would be representative of the direction I’d like the band to progress along. So, there was a fair bit of (French electro label) Kitsune Maison, some of the Soulwax remixes, a bit of LCD Soundsystem. I even put on a couple of tracks that I wasn’t sure she’d like – a bit of David E Sugar.”
“But they were my favourite,” Julianne continues. “It’s almost been like re-discovering music again. Because there are so many fantastic acts working in this field at the moment, you really have to keep right up to date. There’s an onus on you to make sure you know what’s happening. And that’s great. It makes you feel like you’re involved in something very exciting.”
If Nakatomi Towers are enthused by the opposition, according to Julianne, it’s nothing compared to the Christmas-morning glee they feel when teasing out the limits of their own sound.
“At the moment, it feels like all possibilities are open to us. We’re both Mac Book freaks and are using the programmes Logic and Reason, and it’s insane what you can do with them. Every day, we’re discovering something new.
Ah, Logic and Reason. These names have been recurring so much of late during chats with bands, they almost seem to be threatening Lennon and McCartney as the most influential duo in pop. Should this be a reason for more than techno Luddites to worry? That a reliance on a set of programmes could led to a homogenisation of output?
“It’s a valid point,” says Dave, “but for me, it’s like saying everyone that’s handed a guitar is going to write the same song. They’re tools, very effective and powerful ones, but ultimately they’re only as good as the original idea. I tend to have a very strong idea of what I want when I first set off, and they just help me get there a bit quicker, and maybe throw up suggestions that I can run with or dismiss. Ultimately, I think it’s like having the biggest and most sophisticated effects rack in the world.”
As already mentioned, Nakatomi Towers are not shy in citing their influences. But then, why should they? There is little shame in declaring an undying devotion to the collected Kitsune Maison back catalogue, or whatever project Brother and Sister Knife are currently working on – or even in giving a nod to contemporary chart-botherers such as Friendly Fires and Le Roux. Especially when they seem so eager to take creative encouragement from the dizzying results.
“There’s so much inspiring stuff out there,” says Julianne. “And I feel like our sound is still evolving. We are both interested in taking lots of risks with our sound, but at the end of the day we’re not reinventing the wheel. Ultimately, we want to write pop songs. Songs that have you dancing round a club or on your own in the living room. Our focus is on making music anyone can listen to. On one hand we’d love to play somewhere like Shine, but then again, we want our mums and dads to bop along too.”