Beginning life as Clwb Fuzz, this Cardiff band’s name change to Midding has seen them recalibrate their sound substantially. This month they release their debut 12”, Nowhere Near Today – five songs of wobbly lo-fi psychedelic rock charm. Emma Way spoke about it to Midding’s singer and guitarist Joe Woodward.
Nowhere Near Today, your new EP, was recorded partly in Shift – former Cardiff shopping centre, now artist-led DIY creative space – and partly at home. How did Shift inform the sound as a space?
Shift was a great space to work in, and we were very lucky to work there. It gave us the chance to try out new ways of recording we wouldn’t have been able to do at home, but I think the environment had more of an impact. Seeing other artists come and perform in the venue area was really a big influence and made us want to create all the time.
Why did you feel that setting was right for this project?
We didn’t decide that this was the right place to make an EP, it all happened very naturally. We would just go record there for fun, and then eventually realised we had enough songs for an EP.
Was there an aim to get the EP to sound like a live performance? You also recorded at home, so was there an aim to mix solitude and company?
Not really – there were bits on the EP we recorded live together, like group vocals, percussion and other bits, but most of it was just track-by-track. I think the appeal of recording at home was just the accessibility of it, you don’t have to travel anywhere you just roll out of bed and get your ideas down instantly before you lose them. There’s no time limit as well, like in a studio, which gives you a bit more chance to try out new ideas, and you can record all through the night. Depending on how nice your neighbours are.
You’ve previously mentioned recording on very basic analogue equipment – what is it about this lo-fi approach that appeals to you?
Yeah, we started out recording on a four-track cassette machine. Then for this EP we’ve upgraded to an eight-track, which has really just expanded what we’re able to do and do it to a higher quality. I think the appeal of it to us is the limitation: using DAWs [digital audio workstations], it’s so easy to get lost and be forever endlessly fiddling with things. With the tape machine if something goes wrong or you want to add more you’ve got to think of creative ways to get around it, rather than just putting it through a plug-in that fixes it all.
Now you have a human drummer in Nia Abraham – having used a drum machine on this EP – how do you see Midding’s sound evolving?
I think since Nia joined on drums things have been come a bit more spontaneous, with the drum machine everything had to be a bit more planned to program everything in. Now we’re able to jam together on stuff and it’s all a bit more natural, also it makes such a difference when playing live having the power of the drums behind you rather than the drum machine coming through the monitor. We’re really excited to start recording the album and have real drums on it.

Were you meticulous about the recording process using such a large space? Did you use any unconventional recording techniques apart from the space you were using?
There was some general precision because of the tape – you don’t want to record over something by accident and then it’s gone forever. Other than that, I don’t think there was much precision – there was a lot of intentional and natural haphazardry followed by desperate attempts at fixes/transformations that led to crazy things happening. Lots of bouncing and compressing and gating and dying batteries and stuff not plugged in right and not knowing or caring about stuff as long as it seemed to work well enough / sound inspiring.
Once we’d recorded everything we re-amped it all through a £30 guitar amp which we balanced on a chair in the hallway of the house, to try and make some sort of homemade reverb chamber. It was more about being ‘punk’ about production in general.
How did each band member’s contributions shape the sound during recording?
It was mainly me and Elliot [Roberts, bass] that recorded everything, then Eli [Allison, guitar] would come over and put guitar on bits on some songs and some we’d do vocals all together. But the band sort of formed properly around the recordings, so we’re really keen to start recording new stuff and actually be recording as a band.
Your new single Synth Love recently premiered on BBC 6 Music. How did that song come about?
We started it a few years ago – maybe 2022, 23 – when we were using the four-track, then it was shelved for a bit whilst we were doing other stuff. Then when we started to realise we’d nearly got enough songs for an EP we revisited it, we transferred it all to the eight-track and did a bit of polishing, then ended up with the final song. It’s good to finally get it out after having it for so long.
Midding play Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff on Sat 15 Feb.
Tickets: £5. Info: here
Nowhere Near Today is released on Fri 7 Feb via Tough Love.
Info: here
words EMMA WAY