I don’t know if it is still cool to be an Interpol fan these days, but I don’t care because I like them and so does my friend Shepard Fairey – can I call him like this? Since I hang out at his Subliminal Studio all the time, I get the impression I know him…
Anyway, if you visit the new Interpol website, you will see a picture of the mural that Shepard made in Brooklyn to honor the release of Interpol’s single, off their latest album ‘El Pintor’. And because this album seems to be all about anagram (El Pintor is an anagram of Interpol) the mural features ‘The Very Growing Sin’, an anagram of the single ‘Everything Is Wrong’! Clever, and this is what Shepard had to say about the song and the idea of the promotional mural:
‘Daniel Kessler suggested “Everything Is Wrong” as the song for me to interpret. I love that song, so my thinking was to find a middle ground between Interpol’s aesthetics, lyrics for the song, and my art style and concepts. The lyrics to “Everything Is Wrong” are open to interpretation, but whether the song is about hard living, relationship failures, wear and tear on the environment, or an empire mentality, regret for poor decisions seems to be the theme. I decided to explore the idea of being complicit in a personal relationship or a relationship with a system that one realizes is unhealthy. I did an art show recently called “Power & Glory” that was a celebration and critique of Americana with an emphasis on the symbols and meanings of power. I like to question our obsession with money and the bravado that “America is the greatest country in the earth’s history”. Basically, I’m looking for an excuse to implicitly question hegemony, and “Everything Is Wrong” gave me one. My anagrams from EVERYTHING IS WRONG: THE VERY GROWING SIN and EVERY WRONG INSIGHT reflect both Interpol’s lyrics and my Power & Glory concepts. Since my mural images are interpretations of the song through my sensibility, but within parameters, they qualify as “interpolations”. It is convenient that interpolation references Interpol, but meaningfully, I think that art and music that inspire dialogue and interpretation are powerful fuel for expression and empowerment. I hope that the layers of this collaboration might make some molecules collide somehow.‘
Via ObeyGiant
And since Shepard’s designs always evoke a lost imagery of some dictatorial empire, this looks about perfect… What is also perfect is the free download you can get if you go to Interpol’s website, type in the white box ‘Everything Is Wrong’ and you will actually get the single and a new song ‘What Is What’, an outtake from El Pintor’s sessions.
If ‘Everything Is Wrong’ was a dark dance floor with Paul Banks’ familiar voice, split between toughness and vulnerability and exploding over a riot of tubular guitars, ‘What Is What’ has a more disco feel despite a very Interpol introduction. This song sounds different from the rest, Banks’ vocals dominates far less once we reach the chorus, it almost disappears in a falsetto and the rest sounds like a studio-54 dream. Go get the songs here!
