Nation of Language: New York indie boards the Trans-Europe Express

It’s the 1980s revival we could have done without. An irredentist Russia faces an international boycott after its tanks roll into a neighbouring country. Across the world, economies lurch from crisis to crisis. The spectre of nuclear war casts a mushroom-cloud-shaped shadow. With every passing day, the existential gloom seems to grow thicker.

“It is a pretty strange circle to have come around,” says Ian Devaney of buzz-fuelled New York electronic trio Nation of Language. “The fact we’re taking this kind of music to Europe as Russia is once again waving the nuclear flag is ... strange.”

Nation of Language, who open their first ever European tour in Dublin on April 15th, are the perfect coping mechanism for these dystopian times. Austere and funereal, last year’s A Way Forward LP conjured thrillingly with the analogue-era sturm und drang of Kraftwerk, Gary Numan and early Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark.

But it was no mere monochrome pastiche. Amid the wheezing synths the project engaged with such thoroughly 21st-century subjects as social media overload and the agonies of being a sane, rational person in Trump’s America. Here was pre-millennial pop brought to us by Millennials wearing their politics on their sleeves.

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These things [social media] are designed to force our ape brains to engage with them. It is very difficult to fight against

“It’s funny – with synthesisers there is this dual thing going on,” says Devaney. He agrees Nation of Language pull off the daunting feat of being both emotionally detached yet also heartfelt and empathic. “It’s very elemental whilst also seeming inorganic.”

At their most unflinching, the songs go all in on the cyberpunk murk. “Let it bleed, cause I’m resigned,” intones Devaney on Blade Runner-esque Across that Fine Line. “Broken hands, begging at the altar of the grey commute,” he continues on The Grey Commute. As the title hints, it’s about the slog of getting by in a world ruled by big, faceless corporations.

In the US, this was an ordeal that grew especially acute during the Trump presidency. And if Trump is out of the White House (for the time being), the unchecked capitalism and populist nationalism that propelled him to high office endure. This gives the lyrics a haunting durability. Trump and other rabble rousers will come and go. The forces that put them there will not.

“Even when the political situation changes, there’s an underlying social tension,” says Devaney. “A tension of tending towards the easy and the cheap. And the disengagement with culture and with each other. And engaging with things that feel more fleeting and commercial, like junk TV and social media.”

Doom-scrolling

He is referring to the dangers of doom-scrolling on Twitter and of being swallowed whole by the algorithms of social media. Devaney feels as vulnerable to these temptations as anyone else.

“The endless distraction and cheapness – it is definitely a thing I go through in phases. And which I try to pull myself out of. And then get sucked back into. These things [social media] are designed to force our ape brains to engage with them. It is very difficult to fight against, when it has been designed so specifically to make you engage.”

Nation of Language come with their own origin story. It begins with Devaney, who had spent 10 years in guitar-driven indie band The Static Jacks, in the car with his father one day. Suddenly Electricity by OMD comes on the radio. He recalls the track from childhood but is floored anew by its wintry beats and Mitteleuropa melancholia (a Kraftwerk signature borrowed by OMD).

This was a red pill/blue pill moment. He went down the rabbit hole and fell in love with Kraftwerk, early New Order and OMD. Something in their European hauteur cast a spell over this son of smalltown New Jersey.

“There are degrees to which it did seem exotic. At the same time, it was the music being played when I was a kid. When I didn’t even understand the nature of what it was to be an American band versus a German band versus a British band. It was all music. I’ve come to appreciate the exoticness of these scenes in their own places, as I’ve found a deeper understanding.”

It is telling he would be drawn to Electricity, one of the first numbers OMD wrote. At the time, they were briefly signed to Joy Division/New Order’s label Factory and working with producer Martin Hannett. He contributed a gothic ennui absent from their later output (Devaney agrees that Electricity’s B-side, Almost, is potentially their greatest hour – a song with cold, clear eyes and icicles in its marrow). The truth, he says, was that he didn’t necessarily know a lot about OMD’s wider career and their subsequent incarnation as flamboyant hit machine.

“Because it was my dad who was a filter through which all of this music reached me, I feel like I wasn’t exposed to a lot of the larger OMD synth pop hits that I think were probably the main ones that happened in the UK and in Ireland,” he says.

“And so, with [OMD smash albums] Architecture & Morality, and Organisation – there’s a lot of very cool and interesting things going on with those records. For a number of their pop hits that I did know – often I didn’t know it was them until I pieced it together later. Which was very cool to learn: these people I thought were synth weirdos had these pop hits. And could do whatever they wanted seemingly within that world.”

Family affair

Nation of Language’s music carries that same sub-zero quality as Electricity and Almost. But the group is, in fact, a fuzzy, family affair. Devaney’s bandmates are wife Aidan Noell (synths and backing vocals) and friend Michael Sue-Poi (bass). Nor are they purely electronic – A Way Forward, which arrived a year after their debut, Introduction, Presence, contains lots of guitar. Often the material rumbles forward with a rattling throb that recalls 1970s Krautrock rather that the electronica that followed.

“For the first record I wanted there to be as little guitar as possible. I had been writing on guitar for so many years before that,” says Devaney. “The ability to start sneaking it back in on the second record was fun and rewarding. There will probably be more of that in the future.”

However bleak, the material has struck a chord. “On their way to being one of the greats,” said a Stereogum review of Introduction, Presence. And they’ve a fan in Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, who stood in on bass on an early tour.

“I had just recently met Fab. And I was explaining, ‘Oh this tour might have to be Aidan on synths and me playing bass and singing at the same time’. And he was like, ‘You can’t do that – I’ll come and I’ll play bass’. We were playing basement shows in Nashville and dive bars in Cleveland. It was the funniest different context to place him in. From the big stage to basement shows on bass guitar. It was difficult for [The Strokes] for a long time. From what I understand they’ve been in a better place than they’ve ever been.”

As with the rest of us, Nation of Language are glad Covid is (hopefully) coming to an end. With hindsight, Devaney feels their sound – chilly and anxious, yet also nagging and insistent – probably came along at the right time, as the world tried to make sense of lockdown.

To have established most of the fan base that we have during lockdown was like sitting at home, unable to go outside

“For a lot of people it seems to have served two different purposes. It could be a morose, austere [soundtrack] for when they were feeling cooped up, and down in general. At the same time, if people wanted to get up and dance around the living room, there is a lot of propulsive rhythm that allows them do that as well.”

As they prepare to pack their bags and cross the Atlantic, Devaney is looking forward to bringing their music to Europe – spiritual home of icy electronica – and to connect with fans who discovered Nation of Language during the pandemic.

“To have established most of the fan base that we have during lockdown was like sitting at home, unable to go outside. It’s like someone is calling you: ‘Hey, by the way your dreams are coming true.’ But you can’t go out into the world to see it. And so now, to be finally able to get back on the road and meet the fans and experience how they found the music and how they relate to it, is so nice. It breathes a new creative energy and life into the project.”

Nation of Language play Button Factory, Dublin, April 15th