Robbie Warin and Josh Smyth discuss Minor Conflict’s origins and new EP Parallels.

Transmission 140: Interview with Minor Conflict

Minor Conflict is a Bristol-based musical group that combines post-punk and leftfield folk influences. In their music, they address significant themes such as urban life, human relationships, and environmental concerns. The group consists of Natalie Whiteland on harp and vocals, Josh Smyth on bass and vocals, and Robbie Warin on trumpet, synths, and percussion. Their EP Parallels will be released by PRAH Recordings on January 24, 2025.

Title: Parallels
Artist: Minor Conflict
Release Date: 2025-01-24
Genres: Avant-garde, Experimental Music, Post-punk, Post-rock
Label: PRAH Recordings
Description: Minor Conflict, a Bristol-based group combining post-punk with leftfield folk elements, discusses their creative vision and influences in an exclusive interview.

Could you talk about the early days of Minor Conflict? What initially drew each of you to start creating music together?

RW: We’re old friends and the three of us found ourselves back living in Bristol. Both me and Josh hadn’t played music for years, whilst Nats had graduated from a music degree a few years back but hadn’t had any active projects since then. I hadn’t picked up the trumpet since I was 15 or played an instrument since then, and I never thought I would. The three of us were looking for a creative outlet and we were hanging out a lot. We were also all spending a lot of time at the Cube Microplex, which is a volunteer run cinema and performance venue. It’s a really inspiring DIY space and I think being in that community gave us the confidence to start the band. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to play music again if it hadn’t been for that space.

The interplay between harp, bass, and brass in your music feels almost architectural. How did you first decide on this combination of instruments?

RW: I wish I could say it was some grand plan but it wasn’t. Those are the instruments we play and the three of us just found ourselves in the same place at the same time. It’s lucky it works, but I also think we try to be as sympathetic to one another as we can when we play. We take influence from a lot of different styles of music – from brass bands to breakcore – so we’re always trying to piece in different instrumentations, and we go through the odd fixation on certain sounds. Currently it’s the organ, but for a long time Josh got obsessed with the Cuica (a Brazilian drum that sounds like a monkey). We tried to play it on the EP, but none of us could get the technique right and it just sounded like we were cleaning windows.

Many of your tracks, such as “Margate Sands,” address themes of gentrification and environmental impact. When did these issues begin to filter into your songwriting, and how do you approach translating them into music?

RW: Politics has always been there in the songwriting from the very beginning and we’ve tried not to shy away from this. We talk about the politics of the project a lot, which ranges from how we think about the band as well as what kind of music we make. It has always felt natural for this to make it into the songs.

Can you recall a moment from the recording sessions for ‘Parallels’ where the music took an unexpected direction or revealed something new about the track?

RW: When recording ‘Glue’, Marcus Jeffery (who plays drums on the EP) and Harry Irvine (who plays percussion) were messing about together. Marcus picked up a fire extinguisher and played a straight rhythm over the final section and it really steals the show. I can’t imagine the song without it now.

The call-and-response vocals and sprechgesang style are something that emerged organically, or were they a conscious choice from the start?

RW: No one inspires you more than your own band mates. Nats has always been an amazing singer, but when Josh started laying down deadpan poetry over our tracks, Nats wanted to do the same. Once she started, we saw how well the interplay worked. We’ve always been really influenced by our label mates Pozi and took a lot from how they use three separate vocalists too.

What inspired the lyrics to Glue, and how did you arrive at such striking imagery?

JS: I wrote the lyrics of ‘Glue‘ after attending a climate march around the time of one of the COP summits. Many of the speakers at the march were talking about how the COP summits had failed to bring about sufficient meaningful action in response to the climate crisis. I wanted to convey this through the various images in the song’s first section. At the time I was also reading a collection of poems by [Federico García] Lorca, which inspired some of the imagery in the lyrics.

What can you share about the real-life experiences that shaped Parallels I, II, & III?

RW: This track (for in reality it was always written as one track until we made it too long) was a long time in the making and took many different iterations. I thought for a while that we were going to have to scrap it as it wasn’t working, but eventually it came together. I spent half a year in Bosnia and Herzegovina, working for an NGO supporting migrants who were attempting to get into the EU. It was harrowing at times and people were facing challenges that were unimaginable to me before. Many people had left their homes years before and had been trying to make it to Germany, or France, or Italy since then. I was always struck by the timelessness of their stories and it made me think of Greek myths where they spend decades just trying to get home. The initial idea had been to write a folk song about migration and borders, but my attempts at lyric writing fell flat. However, Josh managed to artfully construct a narrative which conveyed the songs’ spirit and intention, of two lovers destined to be kept apart by the violence of borders. It should be noted that none of us have direct experience of what the songs’ narrative focuses on.

How does poetry influence your writing, and do any specific poets or writers inspire you?

JS: I was writing poetry before I was writing lyrics. It definitely took some adjusting writing to music, but I have also found it helpful to think about lyrics from this perspective and to consider if the image, metre, alliteration, etc. is the right fit for the song. I find reading poetry, as well as listening to it performed, really helpful when I need to write lyrics, and there are so many writers who are creating inspiring work, e.g. Fiona Benson, Pascale Petit, Yvonne Reddick, Roger Robinson, Carrie Etter.

How does the choice of recording location impact your creative process?

RW: Jack Ogbourne, who produced the EP, is a big believer in the value of space and its impact on sound. To be honest, like most DIY bands, we had to record where we could afford to record, which meant the damp basement studio of the Lousiana, the icy Cube and the (actually quite nice) dBS studio (use of which we owe entirely to Louis O’Hara – Louis, if you’re reading this you have my eternal gratitude). The choice to record it in Bristol though meant we could draw on our amazing friends to play on the EP and expanded the sonic elements we could bring in.

How do you see the future of Minor Conflict? Are there particular themes or ideas you hope to explore in the next phase of your music?

RW: Our plan is to keep making music together and keep enjoying the process. We’re always learning and keen to expand and adapt how we make music. Expect more organ is all I’ll add.

Photo courtesy by Minor Conflict

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others