In the March 2007 issue of Dazed, we ventured into the southern fried underworld of The Mentalist Association. The collective of musicians, artists, film makers, and comic makers from their beginnings in deepest, darkest Kent have gone on to stretch their efforts across the breadth of the UK. With peculiar ambitions and ideas to what artistic license allows, the kids have made a sweet escape plan from the formulaic industry ridden obscenities moden music as it stands today offers.

Partake, if you will, a little of what The Mentalist Association has to offer.

Tea & Toast Band
Neither Do I
Esiotrot
Sonaura
Hexicon
Vindicatrix
Happy Crayon
Shink
Yeborobo
Gasp! Cracking Eggs

D&C: Tea and Toast. Is that an invitation?
T&T: Maybe the name seems a bit earnest or silly now, but at the start I was thinking about homeliness and comfort and Englishness and mundane rituals. I didn't want to be too flashy, I wanted quiet and meek. Now it's just something to potter around under.

D&C: And where are you based?
T&T: Mostly inside buildings

D&C: How was Tea & Toast made?
T&T: At first the plan was to release my home-recorded four-track tapes that had been gathering dust. Then someone asked if we wanted to play a gig. So, it became me and whoever wanted to play at the time (every time we play live it's a different line up. It's been everything from a 12-piece to a one-man band). Usually we discuss what we want to play a few hours before. Over time, it changed and now I feel like there's a hardcore of about ten people who are truly "in the band". It's important that band members are my friends who can understand it on the same level, some are trained musicians, others are not at all and just chant along or hit things.

D&C: So aside from your friends, what effects Tea & Toast's sounds?
T&T: Musicwise (at the moment); Hamilton Yarns, Shimmy Rivers and Canal, Beach Boys, Ivor Cutler, A Warm Palindrome, Chorused the Animals, a tropicalia mix CD Jack made for me... Otherwise, lots of stuff that may sound dangerously like over-sappy indulgence if I list it here

D&C: And what does Tea & Toast do the rest of the time?
T&T: Hang out, watch videos, make soup, draw, try to write stories, cycle, go to the library, all the things everyone does...

Neither Do I
[Neither Do I]

D&C: Whose in Neither Do I?
Topher: Topher and Thew. We are both semi-skilled multi-instrumentalists! Once one of our lesser-known hits 'Distressed Tiger' was played on the radio [and the following conversation erupts]:

Man 1: "Do you know who plays this fascinating music?"
Man 2: "Nope"
Man 1: "No... Neither Do I"

D&C: An ego war then. Where do you guys live?
Topher: I live in Southville, Bristol. The other one lives in Brillville, Southol!
Thew: That's Brighton to you and me. We live in two Bri's we just need a member from Brixton now and we're sorted.

D&C: Why did you start making music together?
Topher: Football Stickers.
Thew: My favourite sticker is Dane Whitehouse from Sheffield United in the '93/'94 season's Merlin album. Also, I alcoholed him up too. We drank a really expensive bottle of whiskey when making our first album with Irn Bru as a mixer.

D&C: So football stickers and laced Irn Bru are your influences then?
Topher: And the Butthole Surfers. And smelly lunchboxes with raspberry yogurt explosions in them.
Thew: Drinks from the spirits cupboard, the limits of two microphones and a shit 4-track.

D&C: Do you play in any other Mentalist Association bands?
Topher: No, he is, the skinnier one is. I am the fat one. I am a hostel backpacker, a hostile backpacker.
Thew: And I like The Comedy Club.
Both: Bye x

Esiotrot
[Esiotrot]

D&C: Whose in you and what do you each do?
AF: Let's be efficient. Here...

Adrian Fleet- Bass, Backing Vocals
Catherine Loye- Drums, Backing Vocals
Duncan Barrett- Vocals, Guitar
John Edom- Trombone
Matthew Rains- Vocals, Guitar
Thomas Punton- Trumpet
Thomas Stimson- Keyboard, Glockenspiel, Percussion, Backing Vocals

D&C: Did you get your name from the Roald Dahl story?
E: Yes! But we also like the band Tortoise, so, we're them, only backwards, not that we sound anything like them. Also, it looks quite cute and awkward.

D&C: How did Esiotrot begin?
AF: We all met at university through our love of indie pop and wearing cardigans.

D&C: What are the biggest influeces on your music?
AF: I told you. Cardigans. But also, awkwardness, the simple things in life, unrequited love and little irritations. If you'd like musically; The Velvet Underground, Pavement, Belle and Sebastian, Dinosaur Jr., The Pastels, Hefner, Sufjan Stevens. Anything a bit wonky and sentimental.

D&C: There are a lot of you. Do you play in other Mentalist shindigs?
AF: Matthew is in Yeborobo, Neither Do I, Les Enfants, Moulsecoomb Sword Gang and Librarians. Adrian has a new band called Powerstations, not on Mentalist Association. Duncan and Thom P are in Carpet Ministry on our other label, Haircut Records. Thom P is in numerous other bands, not on Mentalist Association, including a jazz band called Max and the Swing Commanders. Cat is in a samba band with Sam from Yeborobo called Barulho, but they're not on Mentalist Association either.

D&C: And what do you get up to when you aren't playing, burning CDs, making comics and whatever else it is you do?
AF: Two of us work in shops, two work in a venue, two are unemployed, and one is at university. Four of us live together in a funny house above a hairdresser's. Some of us are aspiring artists. We play lots of football in the summer on the Level in Brighton, but none of us are very good.

Sonaura
[Sonaura]

D&C: Who is Sonaura?
Sonaura: Sonaura is "me, Greg Webster's solo project" though occasionally Sam Eden-Green (Yeborobo), Paul Rains (Hexicon), Tom Bonner (Noise Bitch) and Matt Bonner (a new addition to Mentalist) are pulled onstage for live performances. Greg was one of the founding members of the mess that is Mentalist, playing in the original line ups of Noise Bitch and Shink, whose split singles spurred the whole ordeal forward. Sometimes a little left out as he is one of the few lone Mentalist's still loyal to heir original Maidstone surrounds.

D&C: What does Sonaura means?
GW: It was a word I discovered ages ago and fell in love with, it kept re-appearing in really varied places, including a city in Mexico. As I was beginning to think about the project in a realistic form it was mainly influenced by my son and the sounds I use tend to be very auric, that is, they move in waves, throb and drone so it kind of sealed the deal in using that name for this project.

D&C: What, asides from your kiddywink, are the biggest influences on your music?
GW: Things I see whilst driving, such as corresponding lines and… oh, other geometric shapes; dripping taps and other such daily phenomena that trigger off sounds, melodies and rhythms in my head. The same as when I create this music, I can spend ages trying to force something but it's always the little incidental snippets of things, as simple as a car driving past that create the basis for most of my music.

Hexicon
[Hexicon]

D&C: Who or what is Hexicon?
Hexicon: There are three of us singing and playing guitars, drums, lapsteels, keyboards and the horn. Our live shows tend to be rhythm-section-less, but we've had Matt and Sam from Yeborobo come and help us out with drums and bass in the past. When we started at University we were originally a two-piece, me and Paul, but we lived in separate parts of the country so would exchange demos of songs when we met. Then Tom came when we were looking for a trumpet player. He played the French horn, which we'd never really considered but he fitted in neatly because of his funny hair and beard.

D&C: How did you all get involved with other Mentalist peeps?
Hexicon: When Shink first started making noise we went along to some of the shows. Paul got involved doing visuals, mainly projections but also animations on VHS. The scene in Maidstone was a strong but small affair so we all knew each other or of each other either from school or from the Union Bar. It was a case of 'when you're ready to release something you should do it through the MA'. So we did.

D&C: Is it strange going from such a small, tight knit group to such a sprawling nationwide mess?
Hexicon: No! Since Mentalist started to expand it meant we could have more diverse line ups and there was a greater variety of bands so the Mentalist Parties were more fun. The early Union Bar Mentalist Parties were really exciting. The venue would be filled with stuff – bands, art, paintings on the wall on big sheets of paper, costumes, projections, lots of noise. It became the blueprint for Mentalist nights since - Yeborobo caused havoc in Brighton once with a foamer thing, everyone was sliding around on a slippery soapy floor then got into lots of trouble. It was fun though.

Vindicatrix
[Vindicatrix]

D&C: Whose in you?
V: There is me, David. I am the founder, Sean is on keyboards, electronic percussion, guitar and noises. He also has a minimal techno side project called Paris Grey plus Melvis who plays keyboards but is Grade 8 on piano and an extra member in our ghetto blaster.

D&C: What's your name about?
V: "Vindicatrix was British built and sailed under the red ensign for the first 17 years of her life; sold to a German firm, she became an accommodation ship for U-boat officers. After WW1 she was repossessed, given to the Shipping Federation and became a training ship for boys in 1939 at Sharpness until she was eventually broken up in 1967." As for what it means... I have no idea.

D&C: How did you get together?
V: I had all these songs I'd recorded I couldn't do with my other band Team B. I ended up recruiting Sean from drunken conversations about the profound influence of 80s synth pioneers Japan, then Melvis predilection for rinsing noise made her ideally suited to the job.

D&C: What are the biggest influences on your music?
V: I suppose things like David Bowie and Roxy Music leading to the ludicrously-haired pop bands of the 80's - everything out of Sheffield and anything related to Japan, the weirder end of 80's synthpop and techno of recent years (especially Wolfgang Voigt and Theo Parrish), and a lot of modernist composers like Ligeti, and Penderecki and folk records collected from Deptford Market) plus a healthy appreciation for industrial music and I have been listening to a lot of disco lately. I could just go on forever but I won't.

Happy Crayon
[Happy Crayon]

D&C: Who are Happy Crayon?
LB: It's me (Little Bill) and my big brother (Big Billy). We met a few years ago, some woman called Lucia introduced us. My memory of it is a bit vague. We play with whatever we find under our beds. One of us lives in Brighton, the other lives in London, but our spiritual home is and always will be Maidstone.

D&C: How did you meet the Mentalist crew?
LB: They're mainly our childhood friends, first loves and siblings of either. It all started innocently enough, as most relationships do, but soon became this suffocating all-consuming involvement. We're in far too deep now.

D&C: What influences the noises you make?
LB: Our influences include, but are not limited to: pylons, the Fibonacci sequence, TV detectives (Jessica Fletcher, Poirot, Quincy, Dick van Dyke, Miss Marple etc.), screaming, saying "yeah!" and picking our scabs. Our music is a half-hearted attempt at pseudo J-pop but ended up more like cheerful digital hardcore, or screamo-happy-hardcore that's run out of caffeine and is now gently trembling in the corner with a shaky smile.

D&C: Do you play with or in any other MA bands?
LB: These are the other bands we're in, some of them together some not: Yeborobo, Tea and Toast Band, Shink, Draculasaurus, Nasty Bee, Gasp! Cracking Eggs, Having Brunch with Peter and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. We've also both done various arty things for the Mentalist publication Ex-Tree and Big Bill has a comic for sale called "After the Rain on Tuesday".

Shink
[Shink]

D&C: Shink is one of the first Mentalist bands so, who is the old school crew?
Rob Bidder:

RB: Rob Bidder - clangs/beeps/shoobs
Sam Eden-Green - boom/smash/brrr,
Greg Webster - ploink/waaa/clong,
Shawn Farley - lub lub/graa

D&C: And what's a Shink?
RB: Sam came up with the word - it was made up but since we've found various references to salads, surnames and a Japanese model.

D&C: So, you were once all tight in Maidstone. Where has the band spread it's multiple wings to?
RB: Now one is in Brighton, one in London, one still Kent and the other… hmmm.

D&C: Why did you get together?
RB: Me, Sam, Shawn and another Rob wanted to make sounds that were a little unconventional. They made enough to make an album. But one of the Robs left just as we were about to record the first album with Greg, so he joined temporarily to record the first album and ended up staying.

D&C: What feeds your songs?
RB: ???, tea, toast, eastern references, drones, sounds that happen by accident, cats, being in small dark wooden places where the temperature is greatly exaggerated. Um….

D&C: Who else does what in Mentalist?
RB: Some of us are in Yeborobo, Tea & Toast Band, Noise Bitch, Moulsecoomb Sword Gang, Cats on Computers, Pulses & Beans, Gasp! Cracking Eggs, Librarians, Hexicon, Sonaura, Eventide, Father's Grasp, Rabbit's Moon, Happy Crayon, and many more (I count 19 between us).

D&C: And what else are you kids up to?
RB: I am studying Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, Sam hits things with a few Mentalist Association bands, and also a Samba band and a Romanian folk band, and Shawn and Greg have already told you...

Yeborobo
[Yeborobo]

D&C: Who, who, who are you?
Andrew Kerr: Since you ask Bendy Dog (percussion), Leafy Clog (bass), Important Blog and Crucial Taunt (guitars), Cattle Prod (Vocals) and Christmas Log (Drums). Ha!

D&C: Ha, ha, ok. And what's the deal with your name?
AK: We named the band after a robot built in South Africa at the turn of the century by Andrew Kerr and his brothers to battle in a World Championship. It had a pneumatic axe. Unfortunately Yeborobo failed to move at the beginning of its fight and was thrown into the fire pit.

D&C: How did you get together?
AK: We all really loved or liked each other. At the start there were at least 3 different types of love.

D&C: What are your biggest influences?
AK: THE Rhythm of nature, laughter, silly brains.

D&C: Mentalist Association is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. If you had to describe it, it would be...
AK: It's like an igloo form the outside, and a gazebo from the inside. It houses many free-moving stars which come together in different constellations, which can appear at the centre of the igloo/gazebo, or even in the grounds around it. Some are brighter or funnier than others, and some only hold position for seconds. Some, on the edges, include different coloured stars too. We hold the Association as we would a shimmering skunk.

D&C: Phew! So, if you could go back to any Mentalist moment, what would it be?
AK: They're all like Halloween daydream pencil cases. I think they are far better if you only see them from the front though, and we usually always see them from behind…

Gasp! Cracking Eggs
[Gasp! Cracking Eggs]

D&C: Who is G!CE?
G!CE: There is Diplodocus Egg, I was spawned by fossilised DNA. Now I serve the musical robot.
There is Platypus Egg - I hatched into the band. I'm the one who controls the musical robot.
Then, there is the musical Robot - 00110010110010100.

D&C: Um, what?
G!CE: Platypus Egg. It's something my cousin used to say when he was surprised. I think he saw it on TV.

D&C: Where do you guys live?
G!CE: Inverness, in the nest, internet.

D&C: How did you get together?
Diplodocus Egg: I remember him drawing a picture of a Formula 1 car at school (aged 9) and being jealous.
Platypus Egg: I remember him drawing cool cartoons of the Amazon rainforest at school (aged 9) and being jealous.

D&C: And you make music because?
G!CE: So far... pop, improv, noise, tropical (we have one song with synth steel drums), doom metal, Brazilian Cirandas, theatre and They Might Be Giants.

D&C: Do you play with other people?
G!CE: Yes. Bloody loads. We counted 16 between us.

D&C: And what else?
Diplodocus egg: I paint pictures of eggs. Not lying.
Platypus egg: I hit stuff with samba bands and a Romanian folk band. (That's a giveaway.)

Videos by Robert Bidder
Watch two video's by Mentalist Association's Robert Bidder: