Music

Slow Club: 'Our "album is unplayable"'

Tom Jenkins | Tuesday 20 September, 2011 12:51

‘I can’t believe we managed it…it’s the longest time we’ve spent doing anything apart from school!’ Slow Club drummer/co-vocalist Rebecca Taylor is explaining away the six months she and bandmate Charles Watson have spent perfecting their second album Paradise, out September 12th on Moshi Moshi. While most of us were busy trudging through January sleet and breaking out into full beach wear at the slightest hint of sun around Easter time, the London-based, Yorkshire duo were holed-up in a converted warehouse space in Hackney. ‘We transcended the seasons’ adds Rebecca.

Paradise was recorded with the help of former Clor member and Foals producer Luke Smith. He brought, it seems, a certain degree of discipline to proceedings following a six-week period spent tying up loose ends at a studio in Finsbury Park. ‘We were working on his clock…we needed that’ says Charles, ‘when we were just doing it on our own a lot of the time we’d come in at 10.30 and then it’d get to four o’ clock and we’d be like, shall we just go to the pub?’ ‘I think that’s something about us that works though, as a two-piece’ adds Rebecca, ‘it allows you to focus on the good stuff rather than a load of shit thrown at the wall. We do it our way.’

First single Two Cousins is a radical departure from the simple boy/girl folk of their acclaimed debut Yeah So; it sounds bigger, with a stomp and vocal delivery reminiscent of Cults, swimming in the kind of space and atmosphere Smith afforded Foals on Total Life Forever. ‘We had such a clear idea, both of us, of what we wanted to do, what we wanted to achieve’ says Rebecca, ‘somehow we communicated that eventually to Luke and we all got there. It took a long-time to physically make it happen…we could have pissed an album out really quickly, done it ourselves, but I’m really glad we did it. Somehow we’ve created exactly what we wanted.’

What kind of record did they set out to make? ‘We wanted it to sound colourful’ says Charles. ‘When I think about the first album I kind of imagine a (emits a low frequency hum) kind of sound. With this one it sounds like a harp!’ ‘I want people to dance more at shows and I want to dance more’ says Rebecca, ‘I didn’t feel like I was performing before, I want to sweat my arse off’. Do they feel they were unfairly characterised as twee, indie-folkers first time round? ‘Our first album was a genre, it was folk, we concede that, but this one isn’t at all’ says Rebecca. ‘Everyone grows-up…hopefully now we’re a bit more proper. I can’t think of a better word for it than that’. ‘It’s important not to totally delete the past’ adds Charles, ‘I hope the people who bought the last album like the progression we’ve made’.

As the band freely admits, the new album is virtually ‘unplayable’ as a two-piece; they’ve recruited two extra musicians for their forthcoming U.K. tour, which includes their biggest gig to date at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Nervous? ‘I can’t wait, it’ll be totally amazing’, says Charles. ‘It’s gonna be great’ says Rebecca. ‘Up until the day you’re a little bit nervous that it’s not going to be full but I think we’ll do it. It’ll be fun. We never feel like Charlie big balls ever, we probably sell ourselves a bit short, but when you do these big London shows you feel a glimmer. It’s a nice feeling’.

Contact this writer at tom.jenkins@snipelondon.com

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