Pitchfork

Denmark's Figurines unexpectedly took the Pitchfork office by storm earlier this year with Skeleton, a record brimming with peppy, sinfully-catchy indie pop tunes played with relentless vim and jovial abandon. While Figurines' incessant touring will finally come to a close this weekend at CMJ, the four-piece won't be settling down for long, as they set off to record Skeleton's follow-up early next year.

Pitchfork recently chatted up chief Figurine Christian Hjelm about the new record's direction, the band's Stateside success, tourmates Tapes 'n Tapes, and the seasonally-appropriate hair that presently adorns his face.

Once the tour wraps up, Hjelm told Pitchfork, "the new record is our 100% focus." After a brief holiday reprieve, the band jets off to Sweden's remote Silence Studios to commence work on Skeleton's successor. "It's pretty much out in the middle of fucking nowhere-- out in nature, surrounded by vast fields and mountains, just very isolated from civilization. It's a big mansion; we're really looking forward to that."

Along for the trip is Chicago-based co-producer/engineer Jeremy Lemos, who has worked with Smog, Jim O'Rourke, Loose Fur, and loads of Windy City acts in the past. However, the bulk of the work may already be done by the time the Figurines crew sets foot in Sweden, however. "Ever since the recording of Skeleton," Hjelm disclosed, "I've been recording new ideas for songs, and all those ideas we've listened to, and decided which ideas we want to record-- like demo stuff...So when we enter the studio, we're prepared to do what [we need] to do.

"But there's a lot of new material right now, and it's very exciting to work with the new stuff."

This "new stuff"-- which doesn't have any titles yet-- shouldn't differ dramatically from the material on Skeleton, although Hjelm hopes to inject it with some extra twists. "It's still a focus on the song: it's very melodic, [and] there's still some weird arrangements that sound simple when you listen to it at first, but when you listen to it a couple times, you realize it's not exactly very simple.

"It's that way of experimenting with the way of structuring a song. We're probably going to mess a little bit with the general sound of the album, compared to Skeleton. I just think it's going to be more, like, psychedelic pop."

Appropriately, Hjelm himself is thoroughly psyched. "I think we're going to try to experiment with other instruments-- [like] harpsichord-- and I think it's going to be very good. We have a good feeling about this; we think it's good. We're very content with the results so far, but we don't know what people will think about it."

People might get a taste of the new tunes as the band plays a show tonight in Seattle, and three more in New York at CMJ this week, then speckles the coming months with a couple home-city Copenhagen engagements and some UK gigs. Also, on Sunday, November 5, Figurines will perform live on Indie 103.1's Dead Air program. 

Despite a long year of playing out, Hjelm is cool with life on the road. "It takes a lot of your spare time to be in a band that's touring, but we're not complaining at all-- it's what we want to do."

While trekking this year, Hjelm and company joined up with Minneapolis indie giants Tapes 'n Tapes for a string of gigs-- and learned some valuable socio-cultural lessons along the way. "They were very nice guys, but they didn't drink as much as we did. I guess it's because we're from Europe."

Differing consumption habits aside, things have been looking up for the quartet in the U.S., something Hjelm takes in stride. "Looking back, it's been a fantastic year, and we're very grateful. We can tour [in the U.S.], and we can see things evolving over here. More and more people are coming to the shows every time we visit a city. For us, we're looking at this and we can see it's going in the right direction.

"We're very happy with what's been done this year, and we just hope that things can evolve in the same direction as now."

And things can only get better when Hjelm is sporting his current arrangement of facial hair, a dashing one-two punch of beard and mustache. "I've gotten some compliments, you know, for this beard I'm growing. I'm actually very content with the volume of this beard at the moment. This is my fall beard; it's kind of reddish and brown, so it fits perfectly into the colors of the fall. When I'm walking out here on the streets, it's great."

Figurines on the road:

10-31 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
11-01 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge (Fanatic CMJ Showcase) *
11-02 New York, NY - Cake Shop
11-04 New York, NY - TBA

* with Girl Talk, Canada, Daylight's for the Birds, Mobius Band, Hello Stranger