It often sounds like a stretch when talking about the “uniqueness” or “importance” of any band sloshing around in the vast waters that is the current climate of independent rock music. Any person with a WordPress account or a PR title is quick to tell you that they’ve found The Next Big Thing or “Your favourite band you’ve never heard of.” But these aren’t just snappy platitudes when it comes to English outfit Wild Beasts, a quartet of seasoned artists who have been carving out their niche, acquired-taste style of avant-pop for roughly 12 years now.
Often finding more critical success than rampant airplay or fanatic masses, Wild Beasts seem to continually coast just under the surface that separates the breakout bands from the quietly beloved; between frontman Hayden Thorpe’s breathy, nearly operatic falsetto and the band’s penchant for bare-minimum arrangements, it’s understandable why mass appeal doesn’t come easy. With the impending arrival of Present Tense, Wild Beasts’ engrossingly subtle fourth full-length album (out February 24 via Domino) and first release in four years, there is a palpable feeling that maybe their cult status could emerge onto another level – not because the four London-based artists have suddenly changed their tune, but because listeners might finally be ready for what they have to say.
Ahead of the band’s new album, we checked in with singer and guitarist Thorpe to discuss the music and the gap of time between Present Tense and Smother, Wild Beasts’ previous LP from 2011. We were able to catch him in the middle of a studio session for a batch of b-sides the quartet were recording and producing themselves. As the radio blared an array of sounds in the background, he told us why the band needed time for “self-reflection,” the necessity of synths and electronics in the songs they’re about to release, and how the discovery of those new possibilities invigorated Wild Beasts’ drive to continue pushing forward.
Are these new b-sides you guys are recording now in line with the more electronic-leaning music you wrote for Present Tense?
Yeah, if not more so. These songs almost overset the mark. They kind of step into that world in their entirety, to an extent where I’m not sure it would’ve been right for them to be on the record. With a b-side, you can kind of enjoy the lack of responsibility, in that really b-sides are for fans and people who kind of care to discover. And you can run with that because you know people who are going to be listening are going to go along with you.
They’re more willing to let you take them somewhere new.
Exactly. And these are going to be the first songs we’ve produced ourselves. It could be a messy disaster, or it could work out very beautifully. We’re not quite sure where it’s going to go.
In a recent interview with Pitchfork, your bandmate Tom talks about the time following your last album Smother, and says, “We went away and had a good think about how we could justify our continued existence.” The quote stuck out to me because most bands seem to take their existence for granted, never questioning whether or not they have a purpose or any reason to write and release music. What brought about that kind of self-reflection?
I think just space and time. It was kind of the first time in our lives where we were living grown existences, as it were. We were getting off the ground and had momentum going, and we started to realize, “Okay, this is how people live. This is what you do.” And it was kind of an acceptance of a simpler life. I think we were kind of weary of always chasing that next goal, always trying to attain that next thing, always trying to go to the next place, or get that next record out. I don’t think we chose to have that self-reflection, but in retrospect, it was incredibly necessary as people need to take a breath.
And what conclusion did you guys come to that made the band decide they had a reason to regroup and write new music?
I think we felt incredibly empowered by the possibilities. We kind of found ourselves in the position where there was a beautiful dovetailing, a linearity between the record we could make, the record we wanted to make, and the record that people wanted us to make. There was a beautiful dovetailing between those things, and we felt very empowered by that situation. And with a bit of distance from the situation we actually began to realise that we could do something pretty cool. Now, there’s nothing stopping us. We have all the potentialities. We have no excuses. And then once you start to get in that mindset, the drive kicks back in and you’ve got to immerse yourself in getting it right.
The first thing fans will probably notice when listening through Present Tense is the amount of synths and other electronic sounds that have been added to Wild Beasts’ usual arsenal. Was this a change that came about organically during the years after Smother?
I think it happened organically over the years in terms of, we collected synths, we were kind of hoarders and picked up things here and there from eBay or charity shops. We built a little studio and kind of found ourselves with different synths of different qualities: some that were the cost of a months wage and some that were bought for 20 pounds in passing and by chance.
Did these new instruments help revitalise what you thought the band could be after taking that break?
We did feel invigorated by the possibilities of all those sounds. There was a definite sense of wanting to broaden our palette. I do think we write sensual music, we write music of the body. And I think a lot of the sonics, just the spectrum of frequencies you get from electronics, speak to the body far more vividly than the kind of more cruder tools we were using before. And also, on an honest level, we don’t know what we’re doing as much with these pieces of equipment. There’s a sense of mystery and a sense of myth to them.
A sense of discovery?
Exactly. And instilling that sense of discovery in the process allows for a lot more fun, and it feels kind of dangerous because you’re flirting with potential disaster. One minute you’ve found a sound that you last heard on a Rhianna record, and the next it sounds like a Human League thing. You start to find joy in breaking the rules that you set for yourself. If you break them deliberately and with artistic intention, it’s kind of okay.
Would you say there’s a correlation between this new style of instrumentation and the themes explored on Present Tense?
Definitely. I think the doomier, heavier moments come from our discovery of synth bass. The possibilities and muscularity of synth bass allowed us to carry off that darkness and maybe that machismo with an added fierceness. But also, I think we kind of fell in love with glacial pads and things that have a weightlessness that is very deft and subtle. It allowed us to do things that, for us, very much flirt with pop, but with a kind of lightness that would otherwise seem a bit crude with guitars. Songs like “A Simple Beautiful Truth,” for instance, is very much made up of almost-invisible synths. It’s supposed to be very weightless, it’s supposed to just float. That song is about a moment of clarity, that hovering moment of realization, of lucidness. So I suppose that there was a kind of cross-pollination where the sounds were allowing us to describe narratively where we were going, but where we were going narratively was also describing what sounds we needed.
Credits
Text Patric Fallon
Photography Kate Cox