SOLDER, Photograph: Ben Hudson
A fondness for fiddling with gear is central to the SOLDER origin story. Musicians Timu Raubenheimer and Finn O’Shea formed the band after converting an old landline telephone into a microphone, which they named the telemic.
This DIY work ethic is at the heart of SOLDER’s debut album, TRYING WORLD, a work of post-punk experimentation that came out earlier this year. Timu and Finn tell Check Check about five pieces of gear that made the album what it is.
Telemic
A telemic is the microphone I use in SOLDER that I made myself. It is an old landline telephone that I picked up from when I used to work in a call centre. They were throwing it out so I took it and converted it into a microphone. I play live with it and it’s on the recording of TRYING WORLD also.
MTHRFCKR=RPTR by Mile End Effects
This is a pedal I run my telemic through for vocal effects. Mile End Effects is a single person from Canada and he hand-made 400 or so of these. It’s a tape delay that emulates broken tape machines. I love it. Makes my mic sound like it’s ringing at you from the PA system of a dystopian George Orwell megaphone.
Gibson SG
Cherry red.
Rainbow Machine by EarthQuaker Devices
This pedal has this kind of ethereal sound that is really bright and almost has a mind of its own. I think it gives the album a particular sound that was really fun to play around with.
Zildjian 21″ K series sweet ride cymbal
It took me a few months of study to find the sweet ride. I love this cymbal very much. It is everything I could want sound-wise. Fills every space that needs filling. After some time, I now have an entwined connection with it.
Once, having a ketamine trip with a main theme of topography, I mentally transformed into the sweet ride for about 25 seconds. My dear friend who I was with at the time was studying mathematics in Naarm/Melbourne and informed me that anyone can theoretically transform into a donut as we too have a hole running through the centre of us and so have the same topological relationship. For the moments after, I imagined myself reforming into the sweet ride cymbal and laughed about the idea of that.
SOLDER’s debut album, TRYING WORLD, is out now. Follow SOLDER here
