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Most people look sideways at me when I say that we're about to release an electronica album. And that the 'title track' is 12 minutes long. More than a few fellow musicians have suggested that this will alienate most of our fan base. A few seemed generally amused by that and I hold no animus - if we can't enjoy our friends' misconceived disasters then who can?
But bluesman Grant Haua - no stranger to taking risks himself - was excited by the concept and our good friend and electronica expert John Heighes, working down at Flying Nun in Wellington, reckons there's really no such thing as electronica any more anyway... and he likes the album.
FUTURA was originally intended as a companion-piece to WORKHORSE. The idea was that Workhorse would be a regular "blues" album and 6 months later we'd release FUTURA, half the same songs but in electronica versions and half new songs. So two albums, with crossovers, one traditional and one experimental.
But of course we got derailed. So two years later, here we go, Plan B...
Pretty much all independent albums these days are labours of love, and definitely this one. We do not, as you've probably noticed, use electronica live; this is a departure from our usual band sound. But this is intended for home listening - we don't plan to play these songs like this live. In fact we are already well underway recording the next - regular! - Kokomo album, KOKOMO'S PAIN-KILLING MYSTERY BALM.
FUTURA exists because Nigel and I share a love of Swiss titans Yello and Brixton anarchists Alabama 3 (known for the 'Sopranos Theme'). Apolitical Euro-cool meet dirty left-wing London. Perhaps uncoincidentally they're both “song” bands not simply groove merchants. We like songs. So these are largely songs (there's one instrumental, one with very few words). We hope you'll give the new sound a chance - we realise it's a long way from acoustic blues. But that's cool.
I better stop. I'll do another blog about the actual songs in a few days' time. Till then...
But bluesman Grant Haua - no stranger to taking risks himself - was excited by the concept and our good friend and electronica expert John Heighes, working down at Flying Nun in Wellington, reckons there's really no such thing as electronica any more anyway... and he likes the album.
FUTURA was originally intended as a companion-piece to WORKHORSE. The idea was that Workhorse would be a regular "blues" album and 6 months later we'd release FUTURA, half the same songs but in electronica versions and half new songs. So two albums, with crossovers, one traditional and one experimental.
But of course we got derailed. So two years later, here we go, Plan B...
Pretty much all independent albums these days are labours of love, and definitely this one. We do not, as you've probably noticed, use electronica live; this is a departure from our usual band sound. But this is intended for home listening - we don't plan to play these songs like this live. In fact we are already well underway recording the next - regular! - Kokomo album, KOKOMO'S PAIN-KILLING MYSTERY BALM.
FUTURA exists because Nigel and I share a love of Swiss titans Yello and Brixton anarchists Alabama 3 (known for the 'Sopranos Theme'). Apolitical Euro-cool meet dirty left-wing London. Perhaps uncoincidentally they're both “song” bands not simply groove merchants. We like songs. So these are largely songs (there's one instrumental, one with very few words). We hope you'll give the new sound a chance - we realise it's a long way from acoustic blues. But that's cool.
I better stop. I'll do another blog about the actual songs in a few days' time. Till then...
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