British Coldwave Duo The KVB Spill on Balancing Sonic Territories With Romantic Love

It would be easy to play up the romance angle when writing about The KVB – the (recently engaged) duo made up of multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Wood and keyboardist Kat Day – who specialize in dreamlike coldwave music with a grim shoegaze crush, and share a love for analog churns and shimmering guitar melodies. But that would be a disservice to the almost decade-old band. After all, they have persevered and succeeded throughout that run on their own DIY wits, musical sensitivity, and open-mindedness, leading to work with well-regarded labels such as Invada Records and Clan Destine, while maintaining their creative autonomy.

Since getting their start in a London bedroom apartment in 2010, they’ve sustained a forward-thinking approach to their music, taking part in all aspects of the band – from keeping their creative impulses confined to their Berlin home studio (where the two relocated) to fashioning the visual art of their live performances.

Just last year, the band put out their sixth studio album, Only Now Forever. It found the pair operating in peak form, evoking everyone from Suicide, Kraftwerk, New Order, and Spacemen 3. And while those influences are apparent, The KVB also fortify and refine their own unique voice amongst the spiraling synths, industrial beats, tender lyrics, and other offbeat flourishes that would have most studio heads running for the hills.

Ahead of their gig at Omni Space on Sunday, Jun 30 I asked them about the perks of being in a duo, finding romantic balance, and taking their sound to new sonic territories.

You mentioned previously you had a lot of freedom in making your last album Only Now Forever – what kind of freedom? Are there ever moments where you need to hold back or scrap something completely due to the limitations you’ve set up for yourself?
Kat Day: We recorded it all at our home studio in Berlin, so we're not limited by time and could record whenever inspiration struck and luckily our neighbors never complained! Yes, there were moments when things needed to be stripped back to what worked best but that was a process that needed some days away from the recordings to realize – a luxury you would not have when recording in a studio for a set amount of time. There were never any real limitations like there were in the early days when everything was recorded on an 8-track machine. Although limitations can be good, we used only hardware instruments. For example, the OB6 because we find the unlimited possibilities of VSTs can be creatively stifling.

Your sound has evolved quite a bit over the years, allowing in more and more layers and ideas than ever before. Did you always imagine you could create something on this scale back in your early days? Is it easy to pinpoint where some of the big changes occurred in the band’s timeline?
Nicholas Wood: When I first started writing The KVB's demos in 2010, it was always of the moment and I never imagined that it would turn into what it has or that people would connect with the songs as much as they have. The big changes occurred when we switched from fully analog recording to digital DAW recording. This was around the time that we began work on Of Desire and opened up the possibility to create more layers and textures. There is still something beautiful in recording everything to tape, but after a few albums of working like that, it felt natural to develop and take the music to new sonic territories.

Coming from an art school background, the visual and aesthetics of your music – whether it's the cover art or live visuals – must also hold a lot of importance. Do you enjoy these aspects as much as recording?
Day: Absolutely, and the approach to visual production can be similar at times, especially in the way we like to re-process sounds through different machines. I recently built a computer with better graphics capabilities and so have dived into more interesting possibilities with Cinema4D. I still love my analog video synths and like to combine these textures with the digital renders to create an immersive, tactile experience.

Working as a duo can have its perks – but as a couple, you must be operating on another level. Is the relationship seamless between your personal lives and your musical careers? Or do you manage to separate the two?
Day: It’s all about balance. Our personalities balance out each of our flaws and good parts pretty well. We’ve been together over eight years and recently got engaged! Naturally, we argue like any other couple, but somehow we manage to be in each other’s company 24 hours a day... which I know some couples could not do!

What’s the one perk of being a duo that gets overlooked often?
Day: With it just being us two, traveling is much easier. I feel incredibly lucky to be experiencing new countries that I never dreamed I would get to go to.

Wood: It’s easier to maintain your creative vision if you only have one other person to bounce ideas off of. In a band of four or five people, you have to make more compromises within songwriting.

I imagine some of the tracks take on a whole new life when performed live. What’s the process like with taking a song from the studio to the scene?
Wood: This last album was one of the first that we didn’t think about how it would translate live instrumentally and let ourselves go a bit wilder with instrumentation choices during the recording process. I also sing a lot more on the new record, which was a new thing to do live.

What are you expecting from your upcoming China tour?
Day: It’s our second time here – we performed in Shanghai and Hangzhou in 2016. We got to see the beautiful lakes in Hangzhou and had extra days to experience Shanghai and so went to Shelter before it was closed down, walked around the city a lot, and had some really great food. The love hotel we stayed in after our show in Shanghai actually influenced the visuals I made for "Afterglow."

Wood: We’ve been looking forward to coming to Beijing as a friend of ours (Ricky Maymi from the Brian Jonestown Massacre) has always told us about the exciting music scene there. He really champions Chinese rock music and played us a lot of Chinese music when we were on tour with him in Australia in 2013. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of extra time on this tour to explore other cities, which is a shame.

Day: Our live show has evolved since we were last in China. We’ll be presenting an immersive journey of songs from our new album along with some older favorites all to brand new visuals.

The KVB will perform at Omni Space on Jun 30. Tickets are RMB 130 advance or RMB 160 on the door.

Never miss a gig: click here for a huge list of live shows in the city, updated daily.

Photos: Liqiao Zhu/self-titled, redmilkmagazine.com, speakertv.com, joinchapter.com