San Francisco post-punk band Topographies have released their second album, Interior Spring, and announced a European tour. We asked singer Gray - son of The Cure's Lol - Tolhurst the BIG questions . . .
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Formed in 2018 in San Francisco by Gray, Justin Oronos, Jeremie Ruest, and Gray, Topographies link the icy riffs and gloomy atmosphere of early coldwave with the textural depth and warmth of classic shoegaze, emerging with a style that’s both contemporary and timeless.
On Interior Spring, they explore themes of guilt, inherited trauma, and recovery. The meaning of its title is triplicate: a submerged river carrying hope, an anxiously wound clock, and a season where wildflowers bloom on the graves of the past.
While the work of Tolhurst’s father - Laurence Tolhurst from The Cure - provides a clear influence, Topographies expertly channel acts like Asylum Party or The Chameleons on anthemic pearls like Night Sea and Chain of Days.
Tolhurst’s lyrics draw on his own experience in recovery from substance abuse to examine the cycle of use and hopelessness that characterizes addiction. Through these ten songs, the group hopes to present the idea that freedom is not an escape but an embrace of the quotidian beauty of human life.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
My name is Gray Tolhurst and I am the singer of Topographies. We started the band in San Francisco in 2018 and are currently based between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We started the band in an old convent turned artists collective in the Lower Haight area of SF. I guess that's a pretty goth place to start a band.
How would you describe your music?
Our music is a blend of coldwave, dream pop and shoegaze. We love drum machines, vintage synth sounds, reverb, and delay. It's meant for dancing and introspection in equal parts.
Who are your musical inspirations?
Classic bands like Asylum Party and The Cure, industrial music, Severed Heads, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle etc. But also, all our contemporaries in the Bay and beyond. There's a great international network of bands working in the same vein as us that we are continually inspired by groups like Drab Majesty, Fearing, House of Harm, Sextile, the list goes on.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
The first gig I ever went to was likely this weird King Crimson offshoot thing I went to with my family. The first gig that made a real impact was seeing Kraftwerk at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles when I was like 13 and seeing the band get replaced by robots at the encore.
What was the first record you ever bought?
First CD: Smash Mouth - Astrolounge (I was a kid in the 90s)
First record: Animal Collective - Feels.
What’s your favourite song right now?
My favourite song at this exact moment is Presume Too Far by Dissolve which was the band Roy Montgomery formed after the Pin Group and Dadamah. It's definitely Durutti Column adjacent psychedelic, post-punk guitar dreaminess with some shoegaze elements too. Absolutely beautiful!
Favourite lyric of all time?
Oh, jeez this one is really hard because I absolutely love lyrics. I studied poetry in school and have a severe obsession with song lyrics. I think it might be I Felt Your Shape by the Microphones: "I thought I felt your shape but I was wrong, Really all I felt was falsely strong, I held on tight and closed my eyes, It was dumb I had no sense of your size".
It's very different from the music that we make but I really like the image of the body as a shape. It’s something I think we all can relate to, the emptiness of a bed after a lover has left, just the memory of their form. Strangely, our guitarist Jeremie and I once opened for Phil Elverum in San Francisco on his A Crow Looks At Me tour. It was the most nerve-wracking gig I've ever played for a totally silent audience ready to receive the heavy feelings Phil put in that album.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Evening Star by Fripp and Eno. That's my desert island record for sure.
Where can people find your music/more information?
Bandcamp, IG: _topographies_and we'll be in Europe in May so maybe somewhere nearby live and in the flesh!
Alan Corr
