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Vukovar are an alternative indie/post-punk band based out of the North of England. Their latest album, 2016‘s ‘Voyeurism’ can be found on several best album of the year lists with songs like ‘The Blood Garden’, the groovy ‘Masterpiece’, and the Joy Division-invoking ‘Irreversible’. Self-described “idealists, voyeurs, and totalitarians”,  they will be playing at the first Vernal Equinox festival in Preston on March 3rd hitting the main stage.

Vukovar was founded in 2014, care to explain to our readers how you’ve become the band that you are today?

We rely upon being insistent.

You’ve been playing many popshows recently (possibly) in concentration for a secret record, how will Vernal Equinox differ?

The answer to that will be revealed on the night. We can’t answer too extensively now as it’s not entirely up to us anyway and we’re not (quite) arrogant enough to think it ever was.

What were some of the inspirations – musical or otherwise – behind Voyeurism?

Voyeurism’ was made as an alternative soundtrack to a film that hasn’t yet been made called ‘‘The Duke Paolo And Little K.’’ – this was the overriding part of the record, but with scraps built and stitched and pulled together from particular images, literary and other things of other natures as influences.

How much say do you have in the visual artistry of your band? What does the cover of Voyeurism represent? 

We have all the say about the visual things in relation to us and our output, as well as the ghosts in whatever machines we find ourselves using. The cover art of ‘Voyeurism’ may allude to different things to different people; it would be unfair to say things that may alter self projections, but all things are circles and cycles and everything is everything else.

What is the song process like for Vukovar? Lyrics or melody first? 

There is no or are no processes for the music. Lyrics, melody, imagery, the ‘‘feel’’, whatever is there – all of these things often come in their own way at their own time and all at once.

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On your latest LP Fornication you cover and/or sample a wide breadth of artists such as The Shangri-Las and The Velvet Underground. What was the inspiration behind your choices?

Any choice – whether the song or the sample – was made around the ideas that came and were formed around how we’d do them. The idea of cover songs doesn’t usually interest us too much, so the less said the better. We were excited about a new way of exploring music.

On your social media pages it’s implied that Fornication will at some point be removed from online listening access. What are your thoughts on people’s changing music listening habits and the impact it has on your artistry?

That’s right. We’re not sure it has much impact, and it isn’t up to us how others enjoy their music. It’s a shame that most things, not just music, are seen as light forms of entertainment to be consumed hungrily and discarded with disarming ease, rather than a way of connecting to this and other worlds and places. But hasn’t that always been the case? Not for everybody of course… We, as a group, find what we want to find in things – we couldn’t really give a fuck whether others do or not.

What are your upcoming plans for Vukovar? A full-length album on the way, perhaps? 

We recorded our 4th LP ‘Puritan‘ (which was supposed to be our 3rd, after ‘Emperor’ and ‘Voyeurism’) last year which is currently being mixed. A single from that may be along soon… We’re also in the middle of putting together another LP with somebody who we never thought would even hear of us – not too much can be divulged about this but we have managed to collaborate with some fascinating people on it, too… As well as a single later in the year with the hyper-realist artist Andrzej Klimowski for netlabel day with Vulpiano Records… Perhaps we’ll consider doing another ‘Fornication’ record after all this is done. Many more things will pop up along the way. We want to make a film and pornography and a zine and lots of other things via The Brutalist House; our own den of iniquity…

Photo credits: Vicky Middles (2nd one)

Sarah Medeiros