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Welcome to Switched On Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding the band churches spelled with a stylized V is well known for their comprehensive use of one of my favorite instruments

The synthesizer and they have this updated take on synth pop a subgenre of pop we most closely associate with the 1980s

While they were gearing up to make their second album in 2015 churches members Martin in Ian spent much of the recording budget buying up many of the original synths used to make those iconic 80s dance tracks

You can hear the full power of these synths on a track like never ending circle off that second album

And of course nostalgic replicas of those synth sounds are now being spun up into hits for elite pop acts like Duolipa

And the weekend

But churches has been wielding these sounds for more than a decade and their newest project is a great reminder of how closely we link that 80s synth sound with something maybe a bit surprising

The sound of horror their new album is screen violence it draws inspiration from classic horror films like John Carpenter's Halloween and gets into some dark themes like the violent online abuse churches lead singer Lauren Mayberry has endured for much of the band's existence a hyper consciousness of her own mortality brought on by that abuse and fears of losing her grip on reality

It's a powerful record. I was so pleased to get a chance to talk to Lauren Martin and Ian from churches about this album and am thrilled to bring that conversation to you today

Since you're going to be hearing all three of their voices I asked them to start out by introducing themselves

Hi, I'm Ian. This is the voice of Martin. I'm sitting next to Lauren the final member of churches

Thanks for joining me today. We're going to get into some music shortly but I want to start with the idea of screen violence

It's such a provocative and contemporary title. What's the concept behind screen violence? How did it originate?

I think we're always shining away from the notion of concept because it has such baggage when it comes to music, you know, the concept album

That said, I think the best way I've heard it described by Lauren I think was it's kind of a lens through which we've kind of filtered the world

It's like, well, you know, here's a different way of looking at it that kind of focuses things a little more

It was a band name that we had kicking about in a big list of about 40 or 50 potential band names in 2011 I think

And Lauren had come across this spreadsheet recently and it seemed like a good idea to revisit that concept

Ah, fuck I said it, dammit

Idea, let's say idea

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