Horn on our side

NOMADIC pair Tobin Prinz and Suzi Horn bring themselves north on Monday fired by an album that doesn't reflect its title.

Prinzhorn Dance School - the name of the act and record - is the result of over-active minds working in a disused chapel, beside a motorway, overlooking Portsmouth's dockyard.

“We started hanging out there and making funny noises with a cheap bass and a crappy drumkit,” recalls Suzi. “I’d never played bass before and T had never drummed."

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That led to rustic, raw songs born of a minimalist aesthetic. “We didn’t say, 'let’s be a band' or anything, we just enjoyed the sound of hitting things. However, we quickly worked out every time we added a layer of sound something got lost. The only way was to put less in.”

So their 16-track debut album doesn’t have a single strummed guitar chord. Instead, drums, bass and wiry guitar are enjoined in a delicate balancing act where space and silence is just as important.

“We have a rule that we do everything ourselves, the music, artwork, the decisions. If you delegate something I guarantee somebody will mess it up. We like doing it ourselves. It’s like a therapy thing, says Tobin"

The current tour brings PDS to Plug on Monday. Suzi, for one, is making up for the carbon footprint that creates. “We don’t like waste,” says Suzi who, having moved 26 times, is used to roaming. "We fought for recycling clauses in our contract. There is no excuse for not using recycled paper for record sleeves and promotional stuff. It costs a bit more, but most of the wastage comes down to laziness.”