My next guest will be Iain Woods, aka “Psychologist,” a London-based music artist whose work focuses on psychological themes. In order to appreciate next week’s interview, it would be good for you to do some homework, i.e. to check out his music video links which I’ve referenced below. You’re in for a ride!
Bio:
Iain Woods is an artist based in London, England. He studied Fine Art at Warwickshire School of Fine Art and then Brighton School of Art from 2004-2008. Specialising in the study of conceptual art from the 1960’s onwards, his practise involved performance, video, sound-installation and works on paper, but it was always a preoccupation with consciousness, and ideas of the soul that were the mainstay thematically throughout his work. It was during this time that he started to toy with the idea of ‘Pop-Project as Fine-Art’.
Fascinated with the idea of ‘invisible sculpture’, Woods released his first EP (entitled ‘Stanislavsky’) as his final degree show-piece, claiming that he wanted to ‘fill the gallery whilst not presenting any physical object’. A pair of speakers were mounted and played throughout the space as though a radio had been left on. The pop ditties that were heard during that show went on to win Woods the ‘Channel 4 new music award’, and, when asked if he had a live band with which to play a gig in support of that award, Woods lied and said ‘yes’ – thus ‘psychologist’ was born.
Since then he has released the critically acclaimed ‘Waves of OK’ and ‘Propeller’ EPs in 2011, and for the last three years has been working on his debut full-length album, ‘Autophobe LP’, which he describes as ‘A trash-pop romp through an existential crisis’.
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/latest-news/psychologist-comes-in-waves-47289
A LITTLE HISTORY
I have been recording under the name ‘psychologist’ since I was sixteen. I have always had a deep fascination with the sub-conscious and it’s mysteries.
All of my music and songs are, in one way or another, a study of psychology (and as I got older – I’m now 27 – neurology).
The first is the album teaser, with me posessed by the spirit of CG Jung:
Below is a track called ‘Comes in Waves’ which I released in 2011. I was fascinated at the time with Male Seahorses and their pregnancy. At the same time I
had tentatively begun looking at the brain and became particularly intrigued by the Hippocampus. A few months after I had written this song, I was in Honfleur
in France and there was a cafe called ‘L’Hippocampe’. I asked my friend who I was with why a café was named after a section of the brain and he informed me
that no; indeed the form in the brain we know as the ‘Hippocampus’ was in fact named after a seahorse! In the video, naturally, I am pregnant.
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/latest-news/psychologist-comes-in-waves-47289
Then after that EP I released another a few months later entitled ‘Propeller’. The lyrics from this song were based on the mid-psychoses rantings of a man
who suffered from schizophrenia. He would write incredibly imaginative stream of consciousness death-threats to the nurses at the mental health daycare
centre where my mum works on the back of old christmas cards whilst in ‘art & crafts’ therapy. I found them one year when I was helping them clear out their
cupboards. In the video I play a soul divided into three, arguing over a nonsensical course of action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PnCBBocp4Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xHlpDmff4E
I do hope you’ll join us for what promises to be a very different and fascinating interview! — Dr. Dave
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