Interview: Errors

Steev Livingstone from Errors has two big problems. The first concerns his trousers. “I just ripped them at the crotch,” he says. “I’ve been wearing them for the last few days but they’re ripped across the arse and all the way up the front. I’ve got long johns on underneath, but it’s probably not acceptable to have trousers like that at my advanced age.”

It certainly isn’t acceptable — especially when you’ve spent the day, as Steev has, working in a restaurant in Glasgow, inadvertently flashing your arse at customers. But such are the perils of life for Steev, a man who works hard to make ends meet, cramming in odd jobs alongside creative endeavours. Errors have been making intelligent, forward-thinking electronic music for seven years now, but it still doesn’t pay the bills: Steev pulls pints, DJs, is working on a project with a theatre group, and has just started being a caller for a ceilidh band, guiding people through the dances.

“I’m also doing this project with an artist,” he says. “He’s made this machine that makes music based on a shirt I wear. It’s a turntable that’s got a music box-style comb on it. The disc spins and the pattern on the disc is based on a shirt I own, and that then feeds into my computer and I make a tune based on the pattern. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

On top of all this lunacy, Errors have a fantastic new album — their third, to be precise — to promote, and a UK tour kicking off imminently. This is where Big Problem Number Two comes in. “We’re a man down now,” Steev laments. “Our guitarist [Greg Paterson] has left, so we’re just a three-piece. We’ve been learning how to do everything as a three-piece, which means going over all the old material and working out a way of doing it.

“Simon [Ward] and I are both playing the guitar now, so I’ve got sections where I’m playing a synth and then guitar and then vocals as well. It’s become a lot more complicated. When we do the live shows, the majority of tracks are going to be off the new album. I know a lot of people hate it when bands do that but it’s not like we’ve got a huge amount of hits, so I think we should get away with it. And from early responses, people seem to like the new stuff and the direction it’s heading in.”

There is a definite step change with Errors’ new album, Have Some Faith In Magic. Recorded over an intensive four-month period in Simon’s flat, it’s a fascinating, beguiling record that moves even further away from the pulsing, Justice-style dance beats of their debut, It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever, and builds on the considered, contemplative moments on Come Down With Me.

‘Pleasure Palaces’

Elements of chillwave have found their way into the mix, making it feel more downbeat and ambient in tone (on ‘Cloud Chamber’ and ‘Blank Media’, think Washed Out or Memory Tapes); there are minimal, soaring guitar riffs that make songs like ‘Earthscore’ and ‘Tusk’ sound like rock operas from outer space; and yes, Steev did just use the word “vocals”. Shimmering, wispy vocals arrive that add a woozy shoegaze sound.

Errors fans of old may find this difficult to stomach. For a start, it’s almost impossible to dance to Have Some Faith In Magic. “Dance music was a thing that we listened to a few years ago,” Steev explains, “but now, maybe it’s a thing with getting older, it just doesn’t really do it for me. With dance music, the effect is quite straightforward, but with other tunes you can be more delicate and get a bit more experimental with your thinking.” So how does he picture someone listening to this album? “I think they’re wearing headphones,” he says.

Errors have let go of the past, and to appreciate Have Some Faith In Magic, the listener will need to do the same. “With this album it was like: ‘Forget everything we’ve done before, and let’s move on,’” Steev says.

“A big part of the vocals was hearing stuff like the first Panda Bear record. That had a big effect on me from the way he was using reverb and delay. Also the way Cocteau Twins use their vocals.” For a band that once said they’d never use vocals at all in their music, this marks a big change in ethos for Errors. But according to Steev, the lack of vocal parts on early records was more as much a confidence thing as it was an aesthetic standpoint.

“I hadn’t worked out a way of having vocals that sounded the way I wanted them to,” he says. “It was only through hearing how other people used them that I thought: ‘You know what, you can have singing on a tune and it doesn’t ruin it.’ A lot of the music I like, if there’s an instrumental version available, that’s the one I go to. I think a lot of music is ruined with vocals. A lot of people use them without thinking about why. They just think that’s what bands do. But now we’ve found a way that we can have vocals. We’re using them as an instrument.”

Steev hasn’t suddenly started crooning into the microphone. His voice is withdrawn and floating on air, the words mostly indecipherable. “I’m not a lyricist,” he says, “so I wouldn’t ever feel comfortable writing words that people were able to hear.” So if Errors’ songs have meanings, as such, they remain as cryptic as ever, even with the addition of a human voice. “The tunes aren’t big, conceptual pieces that mean something,” he says. “It’s just music to us.” Just music, indeed.

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