And just when you’d hung up the skates on this rotten rutabaga of a year, just when you’d spent your last bit coin on a solar-powered scalp massager, just when you’d rung up mum and asked if she’d clear off the work table in the moldy shed to make thee a mattress, in strides Locussolus on the eve of Halloween with a new banger of a track and the band’s first ever music video to give you some hope, stir your central regions, and carry onward with a naughty glint in your pupils.
Lead by the inimitable DJ Harvey (alongside Sam Fox & Tara Selleck), who has of course pulled punches and charmed babies on Flaunt’s behalf over the years, Locossulus’ “Zombie Sex Dream” is the first single off the trio’s new EP, Exhumed. Originally a part of Harvey’s Tales from the Nocturne, the Exhumed EP lands on shelves at a moment when psychological deliverance via kink, gore, and frontal lobe-clinging chorus’ feel the only pliable option.
Directed by filmmaker and fellow Locussolus band member Sam Fox, the video of course tells a tender love story, replete with visual riches.
Flaunt took a few moments from the grind and toil of this pickle of a pandemic to chat with Harvey, who had just finished a horse ride up in Montecito, CA, while he looked out at the steely blues of the Pacific and shared on the video’s creation, where the dance floor has been and might be headed, and perhaps most importantly, on that fine line between fantasy and manifest, between observation and partaking, between the needly needle and the subliminal wax. Enjoy!
I had a dream last night, and you were in it! What'd you dream about last night Harvey?
What did I dream about... last night. I dreamt I was surfing in very cold water and I also got locked in this sort of S&M basement, where these people were being strapped into these restraints. It was pretty cool.
And did you want to leave? Or were you compelled to hang around?
I was fascinated, I was hoping that it would be an erotic experience but it wasn't really. It was more just interesting, like for the performance art kinda deal.
Yeah, sometimes we desire the erotic inlets where they don't exist.
Right! The fantasy is better than the reality.
Yeah, and occasionally eroticism morphs and evolves into that which it never once was.
I mean that's true. I used to have a small collection of what would be quite extreme perversion magazines, but they had virtually little or no genitalia or penetration or anything that would be considered a regular sexual exploit, just these very specialist sort of people wading in mud and things that you wouldn't necessarily think. And I suppose that's why it's a perversion because it's taken away from what you would generally think as a regular turn on, as it were. They were all very expensive as well. A regular men's magazine might be three or four pounds, but if you want it with that sort of mud wading it could be 30 pounds. It costs a lot to be a pervert!
How have you been holding up in pandemic times?
Yeah, really really well! You know, I live in Southern California and the sun shines everyday and I can walk to the beach. I go surfing and even though I feel there's been this sort of three thousand foot trough, this spectrum of death hanging over me, if I just step out of that shadow it's all kind of okay.
I've chatted with a number of artists in this time and I think initially there was a lot of pressure, be it external or sort of internally motivated. to kind of capitalize on the down time or the quietude of planet Earth, but a lot of folks found themselves a little too preoccupied or distracted or out of practice, to actually be that industrious in this period. What would you say for yourself?
I've always been a great underachiever, and I've always loved to not do something, so it's kinda been, you know, I was actually looking for a really good excuse to have a year off and just hang out in Southern California. And like I said, if it wasn't for this polarized politics and climate of fear, and this shadow of the plague, and the zombie apocalypse and all that kind of stuff… matter of fact, you can just sort of side step that. It's just actually not that bad and I'm a little bit lazy, to be honest. So yeah, it hasn't been so bad for me, even though I have managed to get a few things done, like make some music and produce some pop videos and raise some money for charity and stuff like that for people that weren't quite as fortunate as I am. I mean, as far as getting extra creative, that would be something that would more happen in places like London, and Berlin. Like producing and fashion, and like good music, because the weather's shit. It was when I grew up anyways, so you just locked yourself in your room and made music and fashion. Whereas, if you're in Southern California it's a slightly different story. It's very easy just to go to the beach and surf your life away.
And how has the surf been?
Actually, terrible! This year has been one of the worst years on record for my local beaches anyways. There hasn't been a decent swell since July the 4th. I mean, globally I think the southern oceans like Bali and places like that have had a pretty good season, and you know it seems like everywhere except my little area, which is really Venice Beach, up to Ventura, that's my surf catchment if you like, and don't get me wrong there has been some good days, but not the sort of monsters southern swells that we would hope for to make Malibu really fire, you know, that's a dream come true.
Instead, Malibu's on fire, at least by proxy.
Yeah, which is kind of a natural occurrence in some respects but also probably nudged in the wrong direction by human stupidity. I mean, there's people who wonder why their house got blown away and the place where they live is called Tornado Alley. It's like, ‘Yeah.’
Sure, like the lightning and hurricane capital of the world in Southern Florida, I suppose. We make our beds.
Yeah, totally, I'm a great believer that sooner or later, California will just snap off and flip into the Pacific Ocean. You know, because the whole thing's on a fault, it's just the matter of time. Hopefully not in my lifetime.
Yeah, I'll save that for the kids.
Yeah! Ha ha! I don't give a damn about my grandma.
This is true, our children and our children's children.
Yeah, if they haven't got their shit together by the time I die, they never will but that's that.
Let's talk Locussolus. So speaking of, I was sent 'Zombie Sex Dream' and at the commence of our conversation, you know, you spoke of a sort of environmental stimulation and that's certainly what the ethos of this song is kinda trying to put across. It's an immersion. Can you talk to me about the sort of immersion of this video we're premiering over here at FLAUNT and what excited you about the project?
It's truly exciting. I don't recall the last time I actually had a video produced to go along with a piece of music that I produced and the very talented Samantha Fox, or Sam Fox, has produced this whole thing, and in many respects, I met her early on and then she's run with the creative process. That's been again, in my too lazy to do things world, Sam's picked up the ball and made the whole thing happen and it's turned out really well. I didn't really want the video to match the lyrics and verse, the rhythm of the track. The music has become the soundtrack to the video rather than the video is the video for the music. I think if you were to just play the record and not see the video, then you would conjure up your own ideas as to what a visual may be to that. I always felt that that's one of the great things of listening to a record is it's not like watching TV or a movie. Your brain has a chance to fill in those gaps. But with a video, as well it adds that other dimension and it is not a direct correlation between the music and the visuals, but as a whole it should be, it covers a couple senses as it were.
Now you're in a space where there's a visual alignment with this track you're dropping and I'm curious: does it feel good to be filing in those gaps right now? Or have the gaps that are left for interpretation.. is that what's kept you away from creating visuals over time or what's been the kind of timeline to this?
I mean not really. I don't think I've really been, over the 40-odd years i've been in music, where there was a master plan or whatever behind it. This time it just happened to be a part of my idea and something that we ran with, but now it is also in a world where there aren't any more discotheques, which basically fulfill all of the senses. You go to a nightclub and you've got it all right there. Smells, sounds, visuals, the whole thing, so in the fact that there's a lack of getting all of that. The visuals now helped people to tick a few more boxes in the experience. Instead of placing just in a setlist, this comes with some visual idea as well.
And what's something that you feel you learned from Sam in the process of making this thing?
Don't argue with her! No, it's like I'm one of these people that as soon as my foot is tapping or my head is nodding or I've got a smile on my face the project will be finished. I'll be like, okay, usually the initial sort of momentum in a project is what gets me excited, whereas Sam sorta took it on board to see to the details as it were, to actually make sure that it turned out like a professional looking, I mean to me it looks like a short film more than a pop video. It's a dream sequence and even though it's only four minutes long, it has a narrative, not too much… it still leaves room for 'What the hell is that.' I felt that she brought the energy that I maybe didn't have, to actually get the thing made in the first place and complete it and make it a professional looking product.
And concerning this sort of suspension or partial death of discotheques worldwide, are you of the mindset that when we're back out there it's going to be with more fanaticism and freedom because of what we've endured or are we looking at something that will have consummately had some soul sucked from it?
I'm an optimist in that respect, I don't think it would be much freer. It's difficult to get freer and more hedonistic than the stuff I've been doing anyways. It's going to be a tough call. Hopefully with the arrival of what they call quick testing… so that means you get in line, you get tested, you go to the back of the line, you get to the front of the line again, you know whether or not you can come in or not, positive or negative or whatever, then you can come and give us a hug and let's have a dance type of stuff. Hopefully with a successful vaccine… you know, this isn't the first time disco's been attacked by the universe. HIV was a real shocker back in the 80s, part of the thing that I've always said is that the nightclub is ‘five play’ and the bit before—foreplay—it's where you encounter a person and you smell them and you watch them move and you catch their eye and all that stuff, and that was seriously threatened, especially in the early days of HIV when people didn't even know how you got it, people were worried to shake hands with people or whatever it may be. And to a certain extent that's happened with the COVID-thing. As humans we've managed to deal with smallpox and polio and the plague and influenza, and all that kind of stuff, so I don't think it's beyond us to be able to do that. After the Great Plague, I think it killed a third of the population of Europe, but that spawned the Renaissance. Everyone had basically stolen things from the people who had died and everyone was better off as a result and you spent money on art, fashion and food and paintings. If the powers that be don't ruin it for us all with this climate of fear, hopefully we'll come out the other side and it will just be a very small negative blip on the disco radar.
Speaking of fear, do you feel like the dance floor already fundamentally takes a degree of bravery?
What like anyway? Or in this current climate?
Yeah, anyway.
No, that's why the lights are turned down low, so you can hide in the shadow and actually express yourself. That's what alcohol is for, to sort of inhibitions a little bit and get out and shake it.
The “five play” has become something of a masquerade.
Well, yeah. Now it’s done via filters and apps. When you finally get to see the person in the flesh that you’re going to fuck, you have to hope they resemble what you saw on your phone.
It’s expedited for sure. Maybe not to the finest effect, but we don’t always look where we leap, huh?
Going full circle, sometimes the fantasy’s better than the reality.
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Exhumed is available on HGS Bandcamp October 30, all digital services sales and streaming worldwide November 6, and on vinyl December 11.
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Locussolus "Zombie Sex Dream" music video from the EP Exhumed released on HGS
Written/Directed/Produced by: Sam Fox @theothersamfox
Executive Producer: HGS & Foxy Films @djayharveygeneralstore #foxyfilms
Director of Photography: William Perls @perlzy
Editor: Brooks Larsen @_further_beyond_
Colorist: Parker Jarvie @parkerjarvie @company_3
Production Designer/Prop Master: Candice Molayem @animalcrackers.clothing
Make-Up: Sam Fox
1st AC/ Grip/ Gaffer: Kabir Affonso @kabiraffonso
Visuals: Donovan Drummand @thereeldiscod
Publicist: Sarah Castellvi @sarahcastellvi
Management Heidi Lawden @heidilawden
Cast:
Zombie: Sam Fox Charles Monroe: Harvey Bassett
Performed by Locussolus
Locussolus are DJ Harvey, Sam Fox & Tara Selleck
Engineer: Josh Marcy @moshjarcy
Additional Keys: Dan Hastie Mastered by: Curved LondonAudio Distribution: Above BoardP&C Harvey’s General Store Special Thanks: @lovefingers @nedbenson @c.domurat @isabellesaubadu
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