As the opening track of Bernard Butler’s new project’s latest EP fades in, it lays bare its origins as a jamming project.

Thinking About A Friend builds on a regularly looping chiming guitar riff, which slowly develops and changes during the three minutes, bolted on to a motorik-style solid beat before fading out again.

Overlaying it all is Butler’s unaffected vocals, repeating lines and making abstract musical references in a world away from the traditional verse-chorus structure.

This is Trans – a project which originated between Butler and 1990s frontman Jackie McKeown, who first met while the former Suede guitarist was producing the Glasgow band’s two albums.

“We kept texting each other and saying we should do something, have a mess around and make a record in a week,” says Butler.

Then one day McKeown announced he was coming down with the specific aim of making a record.

“I played drums and he played guitars and then we swapped,” remembers Butler. “It was fairly crap but we thought it was a sound we liked, so we arranged to meet again.”

With the addition of rhythm section Paul Borchers and Igor Volk, the quartet embarked on a series of long jams and the tracks which became Trans first two EPs – Red and Green – were born.

“We didn’t go in with any songs or definitive ideas,” says Butler. “Someone would make the first sound and we would start playing from there.

“Without traditional song structure, it allowed simple movements in the music to have a big impact.”

Everything was recorded and painstakingly picked through to draw out the best moments, occasionally connecting disparate pieces of music together.

“When you’re writing a three-minute song, you always get the drums playing the same pattern for 16 bars and then repeating, and the bassist will do the same,” says Butler. “It’s the downside of all modern music – it’s great for dance music, but it’s musicians playing without any filtration or dynamics. It can make it sterile and heartless.

“We always strive for perfection in music, to make ourselves better, but we forget that the areas where we make ourselves better aren’t always that attractive. It’s like plastic surgery – just because you’re trying to make something perfect doesn’t mean it’s going to be nice to look at.”

When it came to the lyrics, Butler eschewed poetic songwriting “about my little life”, instead creating abstract repetitive verses, such as The Prince’s “It’s a casual fling/doesn’t mean anything yeah”, or Lights’ variations on the opening lines, “He says he likes a lot of music/ he likes it all the time”.

“They are little phrases that wind around my head,” says Butler. “I wanted to do something that was real, with personality and character.

“I wanted to sing in my own accent the way I talk. It’s what I would talk to you about rather than trying to write poetry in a pretentious way.”

Experimental sounds

The aim was never to get on to the radio – although some Trans tracks have received airtime – but rather work outside of what people expect. The band have insisted on designing their own Peter Saville-inspired colour-coded EP and video material, on top of creating and producing each track.

The only reason the work is coming out on the Rough Trade label is because Butler’s long-time manager Geoff Travis liked what he heard – otherwise, Butler says the band were planning to release it themselves.

There are currently no plans for an album because the EP format allows more freedom.

“There has been lots of talk about motorik rhythms and Neu! or psyche influences,” says Butler, referring to critiques of the first two EPs.

“Those references are going to disappear really quickly. We can do anything with this format – it doesn’t have to be about a specific rhythm or structure. I don’t like the feeling of being trapped into following a musical movement.”

Similarly, don’t expect carbon copies of the EPs in the live show.

“We have learned the riffs for each piece and a number of signposts when we know there’s a drop-down or something,” says Butler. “There are little melody or vocal cues but outside of those we are pretty much free to do what we want.”

  • Trans play the Green Door Store, Trafalgar Street Arches, Brighton, on Saturday, March 8. Doors 7pm, tickets £6, call Resident on 01273 606312