Trafik talk to Anna Wharton about their new album – None But The Brave
Confounding any lazy expectations, the long awaited third album from Trafik blazes an improbable trail through the sonic space somewhere between ethereal cinematic scores and storming DJ weapons.
‘None But The Brave’ began life when the duo – Andrew Archer and John Elliott – holed themselves up for an intensive fortnight’s studio session in the far reaches of Scotland, far from the nearest mobile signal or other worldly distractions.
The 18 months since then have turned out to be almost as intense. They’ve ripped their sound apart, rebuilt it, then taken it to bits a few more times before emerging with an album that both agree is their best work yet.
Tell us a bit about the process behind the new album. What were the high and low points, what didn’t come out quite as expected?
John: The time it took to complete I think was the major surprise here. It took nearly three years from when we started writing in a small house on the Clyde firth, to when it hits the shelves in June. High points came in the shape of the creation, lots of ridiculously fun ideas to explore. But the lows were in the mixing – trying to fine tune the chaos into an hour or so of order was painful to say the least!
Andrew: We started writing the album with a mindset to put together various styles and not just focus on writing club tracks. We tried to look at it more like a proper band. We have always had strong songs so wanted them to be the core of the album, with the soundtrack and ambient moments being extras.
The album contains a truly eclectic mix of different musical styles, so how would you best describe your music concisely?
John: It’s a mixture of electronic hyper-ballads and protest chants with some emotive cinematic soundscapes thrown in for good measure.
Andrew: Electronic tinged indie, film score-esque drama, melodic instant karma.
How important are the artists you collaborate with in bringing a range of sounds to the LP?
John: Massively – it allows us to have a full scope of imagination as far in respect to what we want to achieve musically. I think with a traditional band setup you can kind of get stuck within the capabilities of its members. For us, if we want to sound Motown we find a singer who sounds Motown. If we want to use a spoken word poet, we can… you see my point.
Andrew: Using different artist is very important as they allow us to explore different sounds and styles. John and I write and produce all the music and John does vocals on about 5 of the tracks on the album, so using other vocalists gives a variety to the mix.
Global Underground obviously gives you a great amount of artistic freedom to make the music you want to. How does this effect your exploration of new sounds? How important is that freedom to the Trafik story so far?
Andrew: The freedom we get from GU has, from the very beginning, allowed us to develop into a proper band and act, rather than just a bunch of producers trying to make club music. This seems to go against GU’s main ethos which is selling club music compilations and speaks volumes for the forward-thinking nature of the label. There are not many labels out there who would take a risk on an artist to let them just create what they want.
We hear you are experimenting with a live band format, what can we expect from this?
Andrew: It’s something we have been wanting to do for years now and have finally got to a place where we can do it. In many ways it looks like a traditional band with a drummer, keyboard player, bass player, myself on synths and John as the front man and we mainly play full songs rather than anything that resembles a club track in its arrangement. Sonically though we are striving for that big electronic sound to marry up with the live players, we have been getting it through the use of various drum triggers, laptops, effect racks and outboard. The idea is that it looks and feels like a traditional live band setup but with a bigger electronic sound.
John: We have played a couple of private shows in Newcastle that have gone down really well. We always wanted to put together a full on live show and I wanted to get back to my roots and be in a rock band, though this time there are no guitars! So this band is playing a load of new material as well as all of the vocal stuff I’ve done over the years; ‘Your Light’ and ‘Echoes’ etc. Early comparisons have been made – like a cross between The Who, Justice and Donna Summer, apparently!
Which of the tracks on the LP do you think is particularly special and why?
John: Personally, it’s a track called ‘Precog’. I just think it’s a beautiful piece of music; kind of sums up what we do particularly well.
Andrew: I personally love ‘Dark Times’, it was one of the first tracks we wrote for the album and marked a real change in our sound, it is some of John’s best lyrics to date and it defines the rest of the album, that mixture of dirt, melody, strings and synths.
What have you got coming up now the LP is done?
John: We’re producing for a few artists in the shape of The Polarsets; a very cool kind of Indie-Trance crossover band who are gaining some serious plaudits and a solo artist called Hattie Murdoch. Hatt’s has got her own style; basically an electro-big band swing kind of thing. Ha ha. Other than that – remixing, working on some scores and then touring. We will be in the Far East for a few shows in the summer. Oh and supporting Tiesto in Bratislava. As you do.
Andrew: We also have some videogame soundtrack work to do and are producing an EP for two of the artists from the album, Rachel Lamb – who has sung on many Trafik projects – and the twins, Charlotte and Stephanie who sing on the ‘Leave Town’ track on the album.
