Found are lost in a sound world all of their own

Claire Sawers on Scotland’s wacky contribution to the Electric Proms

If you’re a fan of air-guitar anthems and rock-music classics, look away now. Because the instruments that make up the sound of Found are as mixed-up and diverse as the music they make.

“Squeeze boxes, glockenspiels, laptops,” offers Kev Sim, a dab hand, apparently, at all of the keyboard techniques suggested.

“Acoustic guitars, drums, keys,” adds fellow band member Alan Stockdale.

“An old Speak & Spell toy where I messed around with the circuitry,” chips in Ziggy Campbell.

“Bum slaps,” pipes up Gavin Sutherland for good measure.

Found are the five-piece band picked to represent Scotland at this weekend’s BBC Electric Proms.

Paul Weller will open the event, and performers of the stamp of Jamiroquai, the Magic Numbers and the Who will guarantee huge audiences. The organisers have also created a “next stage” category as a platform for exciting new artists, where they can create one-off shows that will be “magical, daring and fun.” That’s where to find Found.

The band were put forward by DJ Vic Galloway, who has been championing them since they formed, five years ago. The Edinburgh-based outfit then submitted a proposal to the BBC outlining their idea for the sort of “unrepeatable” live performance the Electric Proms was looking for.

“They told us to think big and be as creative as we liked. We wanted to put on the ultimate show and incorporate all the elements we love,” says Campbell, whose Borders vowels can be heard in the band’s lilting folky vocals. “We wanted wacky technology, audience participation, a sense of humour, amazing sound and high-spec production values.”

Their proposal impressed the organisers, and the BBC not only included the band in the London line-up, but also helped in the staging of a gig in Glasgow.

Earlier this week, Found participated in a two-day workshop collaborating with Noble and Silver — the performance-artist comedy duo who were also involved in the TV comedy Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. The band then put on a show at Classic Grand, Glasgow’s new music venue, a former porn cinema on Jamaica Street. It was billed as “a never-before-attempted explosion of noise, song, comedy, theatre, visuals, art and probably mistakes”.

The collaboration with Kim Noble and Stuart Silver seemed perfect as, like Found, they pride themselves on slick multimedia performances, where they keep the tone as irreverent and unpretentious as possible.

For Wednesday night’s gig in Glasgow, the band fused live guitar melodies with prerecorded electronica samples and on-stage video projections, while Noble and Silver “curated” the show with a series of comedy narratives and oddball audience interactive moments. At one point, a small group from the audience was taken out of the main venue into an upstairs cupboard and treated to a “sub-gig” while the main event continued downstairs.

Sim, Campbell and the band’s fifth member, Tommy Perman, met while at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. They were studying illustration, sculpture and painting, but enjoyed moonlighting with music. After releasing their first vinyl record, Random Audio Therapy Unit, in 2001, Found have spent the past five years collaborating with other visual artists and musicians.

Sutherland joined last year, followed by the new drummer, Stockdale, in February. High points from the past 12 months have been a film project with the Edinburgh graffiti artist Elph, a music video for their first single, Mullokian, made by the illustrator Joe Richardson, and a studio recording session at Abbey Road for an American radio station.

Their eclectic fusion of talents and musical influences — taking in everything from hip-hop to rock and lo-fi folk — results in what the band describe as “a polyphonic mess”.

“We specialise in going around your living room with a dictaphone, and hoovering up all the dirty noise,” says Perman. “We literally ‘find’ sounds from everyday surroundings, and make addictive pop-grooves around them. They’ll make you shuffle awkwardly, with a big smile on your face.”

Found play today in Barfly, Camden, London and on Nov 9 at Heriot-Watt University Students Union. For more details go to www.surfacepressure.co.uk/found or www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms/nextstage/

Read the full review on the Times Online site. Apologies to Johnny from the Fence Collective who’s nice quote from this years Homegame keeps on being assimilated.