Twin Atlantic are set to kick off 2020 with a brand new album, ‘Power’. Down to a three-piece and with vocalised nods to the likes of LCD Soundsystem and Depeche Mode, it’s certainly shaping up to be an exciting new chapter. We asked bassist Ross McNae to tell us more.
‘POWER’, took 900 days (ish) to make …
… from start to finish it was 17,18 and most of 2019 that we were thinking, writing, learning, watching, digesting, abandoning, recording, drawing, laughing, dancing. That’s from the first seed of the very first idea until the finished cover for the sleeve was confirmed.
‘POWER’ is the first …
… time we were both the writers and producers of one of our own records teaming up with Dan Austin to finish it – who engineered our first two records. From really early on in the writing, Sam had the finished painting already in his minds, so we just kept pushing towards that, learning how to do it as we went along. We built a studio to make it, hence the timeframe being super long.
‘POWER’, as an experiment …
… was our way of reengaging with what we love about music, and not what we love about making music. Every song started with a beat. We would purposely have no ideas before we walked through the door of the studio each day and just work on the fly. We would buy a new piece of gear and learn to use it – barely – enough to get it to make a sound we found interesting, and that would be the jumping-off point for each song.
‘POWER’, was fuelled by …
… hundreds of pizzas, hundreds of bags of coffee, hundreds of sandwiches, sweets (lots of from days 0 – 500, then less), late nights, early mornings, intense cold (winter in the studio), extreme warmth (summer – brief – in the studio), laughter, old friendships, new friendships.
‘POWER’ is meant to be …
… both serious and flippant. Microanalytical and broad. Relaxed and tense. But, more than anything it’s supposed to be enjoyed and not dwelled on, as we honestly gave most decisions all of the above treatment until we finally realised that being honest was just asking ourselves, “do we genuinely like this” and not try to just do what is expected of us.
Taken from the December 2019 / January 2020 issue of Upset. Twin Atlantic’s album ‘Power’ is out 24th January.
