STACK NZ Sep #66

EXTRAS

MUSIC

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Kody Nielson Silicon

Q1/ Tell us how this project came about and where did it fit in as far as working on the latest Unknown Mortal Orchestra album with your brother Ruban? I have been just chipping away at it in my spare time whenever I got the chance. I had worked on it a little bit before I started working with Ruban. I showed him a bit of my new stuff and we kind of did a little bit of co-writing when he was touring last time and then he offered to have me involved in his [new album]. I kept working on it more afterwards and it started to feel like more finished towards the end of last year. Q2/ Why go down the electronic route? I kind of got a bit bored with ‘band’ music. I certainly found it a little bit more inspiring to be able to do something new. It was also a little bit of a return to the way I used to make music when I started out – by myself with a sampler and a sequencer. I had a Roland W30 and I did a ton of music on that and recorded it to a four track. Q3/ Although it harks back to the sounds of the earlier analogue pioneers, there is also a bit of future soul vibe to it, particularly on songs like Love Peace . What music were you listening to when you made it? I had been listening to a lot of Kraftwerk and George Duke – I have been listening to him for years, I’m a big fan. I definitely like some R&B but I used those influences in different ways. I try and draw influences from anything I can. I like Love Peace – it was one of the first ones I wrote; I wrote it on the piano first… Q4/ You recently played drums with your partner Bic Runga and Tiny Ruins on their joint tour. Did you enjoy it and will be working with Bic on her new album? It was pretty relaxed – it’s always fun to play drums. Yeah, it would be cool to help her out. We recorded one of her new songs Dreamed A Dream and that was fun, but I think she is still in the process of tidying up the songs and finishing off the writing.

Foals singer Yannis Philippakis on the baggy vibes of their fourth LP. By Zoë Radas. uppers and downers

I t seems as if with each successive album, Foals are releasing ever more vicious and clever hounds from their brains. But lead vocalist Yannis Philippakis believes butting at the boundaries of one’s previous release is imperative, if a band wishes to remain meaningful. “The only danger is not pushing it out far enough,” he tells STACK . “The ideas that interest me are often the ones when

That said, there’s a definite Stone Roses feel about lead single Mountain At My Gate , and Philippakis agrees that there is probably something distinctly British about Foals’ sound. “I remember when we first started playing Mountain , and thinking it was kind of baggy, it had a baggy feel to it. It would be impossible for us to not sound in some way English, because I think the musical landscape and the reference points that we all share in

I’m falling asleep or have woken up in the middle of the night and my brain’s going a bit haywire. I had this last night, actually: I woke up at 4 in the morning… It’s just different ways of unpeeling the layers that thicken, in the

It would be impossible for us to not sound in some way English. You can’t help but have it make up part of the band’s DNA

the band, a lot of them are steep – you can’t help but have it make up part of the band’s DNA.” In the same way, he isn’t afraid of pushing the

group’s limits because you simply can’t un-Foals something,

boredom of everyday life. Sometimes I wish I was the person that I was when I wake up in the middle of the night.” What Went Down is the fourth studio album from the British five-piece, which burst onto the music scene in 2007 with their acclaimed debut Antidotes . For their latest, Foals teamed with James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence + The Machine) for a primal, sometimes harrowing, album of extremes.

when these five play together. “There’s a kind of central belief that everything that we write will basically sound like us,” he says. “There’s a kind of pin that holds everything together in some way, by virtue of the way we write together. The danger would be in making a record that’s too safe or that repeats itself, so the main thing is that we try and push the songs out further from each other.”

Q5/ The first Mint Chicks album F**k The Golden Youth was reissued earlier this year on vinyl – are you looking to revisit any other Mint Chicks albums?

That would be awesome. Those records didn’t come out on vinyl – well, Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!

did but I never actually saw it – it only came out in the States.

Personal Computer by

What Went Down by Foals is out now

Silcon is out now

SEPTEMBER 2015

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