East London duo Bobby Zodiac and The Clairvoyants traffic in the space between ancient astronauts and disco pedal steel, where Sparks meet synchronicity and kindness requires guts. Their second album, !, arrives as a maximalist follow-up to their self-titled 2024 debut, trading existential psychology for spiritual philosophy while maintaining their commitment to preposterous cosmic sincerity. Still recording DIY in living rooms, Bobby Zodiac (vocals, accordion) and Jimmy Clairvoyant (multi-instrumentalist) have expanded the world they introduced on their first record, populating it with Elizabethan alchemists, controversial photographers, and trans-dimensional romance. With a live show featuring belly dancers and badly staged magic, they’ve created their own genre: Parapop. Jason Barnard speaks with the duo to discuss symbols, scarabs, and what comes after the exclamation mark.
Your second album is titled simply ! – an exclamation mark. What made you choose such a minimal title for a maximalist album?
Yes! The music is maximalist, and as we say later, nothing is off the table in terms of style, approach or influence – we like to juxtapose and push things to the limit. Regarding the title, we are interested in the power and use of symbols and ! succinctly makes a statement. The first album was self-titled and introduced us but ‘!’ shouts us out. In a way, we didn’t want elucidation beyond that, the listener can use their imagination. Sananda Maitreya (in his former life as Terence Trent D’Arby) refused to include his lyrics on sleeve notes – he felt whatever the audience came up with would be more meaningful to them so there’s an element of that too. Also… we have a long band name.
Between your self-titled debut and !, how has your sound evolved? Did you approach the recording process differently this time?
It feels like with the first album we created a world and with the second we inhabit it. But the recording process was the same – DIY and living rooms. Self recording and producing is a steep and boggy learning curve, we think it’s only fair the audience join us on that journey too.
‘Command to Look’ references photographer William Mortensen. How did you discover his work, and what about him inspired such a unique love song?
I was making experimental films (check out our videos) and trying to figure out old super8 film processing, I think that’s how I found him, but I was very into his work. Obviously his subject matter, summed up in his title ‘Monsters and Madonnas’, fits in with our aesthetic. He was pilloried by the trendy realist photographers of the 1930’s (Ansel Adams et al.) as he advocated compositional and processing manipulations to create ‘romanticist photography’. His instructional books are great too and informed the song. They have a real ‘golden age of Hollywood’ charm to them. Interestingly, Anton LaVey (Church of Satan infamy) regarded his book ‘The Command to Look’ as a form of magical instruction.
What drew you to the collision of ancient astronaut theory and sci-fi with ‘Egyptians’?
Jimmy is obsessed with ancient astronauts, so we wanted to do a song around that. I’m not sure what he believes but it was an interesting area for us, part of our world. These kinds of themes, for example with ‘Atlantis’, often serve as a launchpad to other ideas. Also, Egypt kept cropping up with heavy synchronicity around that time. Our beautiful dancer Lala Kazam was suddenly invited to a bellydance retreat in Egypt with a tour of the pyramids. For no apparent reason, my brother sent a photo from a museum of a painting of ancient Egyptian women, the same one I had just seen whilst researching etc etc. These sorts of things happen when you are in a good creative process. In fact, the song mentions a scarab flying through a window which is obviously a reference to Jung and synchronicity.
‘John Dee’ celebrates the Elizabethan alchemist. There seems to be a thread through the album of historical mystics and fringe thinkers. Are you drawn to figures who existed at the intersection of science and magic?
Alchemy of all sorts YES! It’s great that we seem to be conveying that. We just love fringe subjects and people and would like to make a musical in this area one day. Also with John Dee, the psychological aspect of his story was attractive as a way to explore the knots and traps of humans and language. He believed he had discovered the language of Gods, which his magical partner then channeled to request that John share his wealth and wife with him. How could he refuse? Hoist by his own petard…
The album musically references a range of artists from Sparks to John Cooper Clarke and Kraftwerk. Who are your influences and what makes it distinctly Bobby Zodiac and The Clairvoyants?
We both have a huge range of music we love. But more than the music maybe, the attitude and approach is an influence – the subversiveness of KLF or the theatrical style of Adam Ant for example.
Musically nothing is off the table, so maybe it’s the smashing together of everything and our approach that makes it sound distinctly us.
There’s a line in ‘Burning Light’: “It takes guts to be kind!” In a world of detached cool, why have you committed to this emotional openness?
That brings us back to the attitude thing previously mentioned and maybe soul music or Dexys Midnight Runners are an influence in this regard. More specifically, I was ad-libbing that part and maybe in my subconscious the Smiths were swirling around as connected to that time, that took me deeper into the emotions and memory I was channeling. We push at most boundaries and we may be seen as preposterous or absurd, but we have good reason. When a more direct approach is needed, it’s vital we take it. Absurdly honest, preposterously emotional! It’s even more important in a world that isn’t.
How did Bobby Zodiac and Jimmy Clairvoyant first meet and decide to make music together?
We’ve been friends all our adult life and connected with music since listening to the Left Banke as teenagers. Jim has always done lots of music, plays many instruments, I’m the opposite, just a fan, but during lockdown I started learning the accordion badly and at that point Jimmy was focused on the pedal guitar. We thought the instruments could sound good together, that was just the spark. Again it’s more about attitude and our approach somehow, magically and pretty seamlessly, made it all work..
Can you tell us about choosing the identities Bobby Zodiac and The Clairvoyants? Did the personas come before the music, or did they emerge as you were creating?
They emerged during the process, as we started to hone in on subject matter and the theatrical element. Obviously this is all rooted in our background and interests. In fact, my maternal grandfather was a one-legged stage hypnotist and psychic. We wanted to be subversive and create characters to go with our live show (we have a belly dancer and badly staged magic). I wanted a character to inhabit. Jimmy wanted to be in plural form.
Your debut LP dealt with existential crises and Sartre. Does ! continue grappling with those philosophical concerns, or have you moved on to different questions?
Yes in some ways. Maybe the philosophy is a bit more spiritual than psychological, on !. It’s all the same world, though- radical Psychotherapy, Parapsychology, Paranormal. Maybe we are Parapop!
Where do Bobby Zodiac and The Clairvoyants go after !?
We move on to ?!
