Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert
Aidan Moffat has been purveying his brand of uniquely Scottish lyricism for over 20 years now, whilst his compatriot RM ‘Hubby’ Hubbert honed his particular brand of flamenco-inspired guitar playing at roughly the same time, getting his start in Glaswegian post-rock band El Hombre Trajeado in the late 90s. The duo released the acclaimed {Here Lies The Body} earlier this year and are set to follow it up with {Ghost Stories For Christmas} in December ahead of an appearance in Cardiff.
Considering that the two have known each other since the birth of both their careers, how has it taken so long for them to release an album together? Says Moffat: “We were always part of the same scene but were never close until a few years ago. Hubby asked me to do a song on his second solo album for the first time, five or six years ago. We sang that song over and over at festivals and got a bit fed up eventually.”
The record was written almost separately, with Hubbert writing music then sending it across to Moffat to play with; one of the many wonders of the internet is that musicians now don’t even have to be in the same country to write music together: “Everything is so much easier, and I wouldn’t dream of going back to it. There are still people who cling on to this idea that things were better in the old days. That’s absolute nonsense. Being able to make records and send ideas when you’re on the move is wonderful. Today we’re doing some live mixing in the studio. They’ll get drop-boxed so I can listen to them at home. That’s amazing. I wish we could have worked like that 20 years ago, it would have made life so much easier.” Moffat says.
The two musicians have a great deal of trust in each other when writing. The dynamic, according to Hubby, is basically that “we leave each other alone.” He’ll write and structure a piece of music and then send it off to see what Moffat does. “Nine times out of ten we do our stuff separately until it comes together. My rule is I don’t send him or any other collaborator a piece of music that I wouldn’t be happy with as a finished piece of instrumental music…I don’t collaborate often because I’m picky about who I collaborate with. I don’t see the point of asking someone to collaborate and then trying to micro-manage what they do – I want their response to my music. My favourite thing is getting that demo sent back, because I never know what it’s gonna be. It’s great being surprised by your own music.”
Moffat and Hubbert are part of a specific strain of Scottish, arguably even Glaswegian music, also encompassing contemporaries like Mogwai and Belle And Sebastian: melancholic, softly-spoken, lyrical. As if something is in the water in Glasgow’s local scene. Is that the case?
“It’s certainly very Scottish,” Moffat agrees. “I’m from the middle of Scotland but gravitated towards Glasgow. We are a very emotional people but there is an inherent sadness in being Scottish. It sounds terrible but it comes with a self-deprecating sense of humour which balances things out. There is a humble edge to the culture; a quiet confidence and optimistic sadness. The albums from Mogwai for instance, I can hear it in the music. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but it just sounds like Scotland to me.”
“I suppose it’s like folk music. It’s about people looking inward and making music that reflects the world around them. It’s not folk music as such; it’s not stories of everyday life or purely the voices of the working classes, but essentially the immediate world around them. Yet, amongst all the differences, there are a lot of similarities. The irony of the global world is that the internet was supposed to make everything accessible to everyone. A space to share thoughts and creativity. What seems to be happening is that people are looking inwards because, I suspect, it’s probably easier to navigate your immediate world. It’s easier to concentrate on your local scene.”
For Hubby, that sense of a Scottish or Glaswegian feel goes back to the early days of his career twenty years ago. “There was a big DIY ethic and a big desire to not kowtow to the music industry in London. A lot is written off as miserabilist but it’s actually quite sensitive, and I think it’s a response to this idea of masculinity that we grew up with; very closed off and very aggressive in this part of the world. I think there’s still a strain that rejects it, and that’s quite good because it was such a bad influence when we were growing up. And I do think that’s a specifically Glaswegian thing more so than Scottish.”
Both Moffat and Hubby are in a sense known for a specific type of music, a niche of their own if you will – do either of them ever struggle to avoid writing the same song by accident, letting the pen write the same words or the fingers fall on the same places on the fretboard?
“It’s quite a delicate balance” Moffat says. “You get to a point where there’s a lot of people who have followed for a while. You find new ways of doing the same thing, or a new thing with a similar way to do it. I tend not to overthink it. I do what I do and try and find ways to keep it interesting. I’m aware of it sometimes and at times I pull back because I’m repeating myself … but sometimes that works. A lot of artists that I admire, like Nick Cave, write about the same stuff all the time but in different ways. I know what I want and expect but I want it slightly different each time.
For Hubby it’s slightly different: “It’s about getting out of the comfort zone. Not wanting to repeat yourself; that’s why each album gets more difficult to make, because all of a sudden you’re faced with this back catalogue of music that you don’t want anything new to sound like. That’s one of the benefits of collaboration because it forces you to work with someone and it will sound different.”
On the basis of their recent work, it’s certainly sounding like an interesting and fascinating collaboration, and one worth hearing.
words Fedor Tot
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Thurs 13 Dec. Tickets: £14. Info: 029 2023 2199 / www.clwb.net