A dark room sits at the end of the hallway behind a thick, steel door that rattles and echoes when you jolt it open. Past the door are four windowless walls that surround a burning candle in the middle of the room, dripping and hardening on the floor’s surface, creating a puddle of solid wax. Against one wall sits a turntable with a single LP on it. As you lift the turntable’s tone-arm and let the needle fall into the grooves of the black PVC disc, the crackles and pops fill the air before revved up guitar chords shake the speakers and bounce off of the walls, into your ear drums.
No, this isn’t the opening scene to some new horror flick, this is the environment in which British rock band Wunderhorse’s sophomore album, Midas, out today, Aug. 30, inhabits. Lead singer Jacob Slater’s voice jumps, screeches and croons across the LP’s 10 songs, while his bandmates play their instruments with bonafide precision that still maintains a raw edge. The word “raw” often gets thrown around far too much when describing music with palpable emotion or a sound that leaves the listener buzzing afterwards. But Midas does everything to earn that adjective. The songs are rough and assertive, but never too grating or discomforting. With lines like, “So spill me all your secrets/I’ll sell you off for parts/I’ll warm your bed/I’ll pull your threads/And fill your head/With something dark,” the project is devilishly evocative and stirring. (Not to mention the refrain, “I jump like a spring/I kick like an animal/I’m ready to die,” on “July.”)
Midas commands undivided attention and can hook even the most dedicated lover of polished pop music and entrance them with the super-charged sonic heartbeat behind each song. Slater tells Melodic Magazine that the palpable energy behind the record was intentional, and discusses making time for creativity, songwriting and the best way to listen to the new album.
On recording of your new album, Midas, I understand that you recorded it at Pachyderm Studios in Minnesota. Of all the studios that you could choose to record at, what led you guys to record there?
We had a conversation with [the producer] Craig Silvey, who ended up being the producer for the record, and we seemed to share the same vision for what we wanted for the album. He’s been working in the studio since the early ‘90s, and he came back with [Pachyderm] as a [possibility]. We’re all big fans of Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, In Utero by Nirvana [which both were recorded at Pachyderm], we grew up with those records — especially the Nirvana record — so we all just kind of thought, ‘Well, that’s never going to happen.’ But then it was approved, so it was a bit of a surreal moment for us.
Did the physical environment — whether that was just being in a studio that has such a rich history, or being in Minnesota — influence the sound or the recording process of the record at all?
Definitely the isolation of the studio [did]. It’s in this valley in the middle of nowhere, the nearest towns are a 15 minute drive [away], and even then, it’s a very small town. There’s not a great deal of excess stimulation, which I personally find is really conducive to being productive in a creative sense. I know some people really like urban environments [where] there’s a lot going on. Personally, I like to be isolated. I turned my phone off for like a month while we were there and we just lived in that world, in that house, in that studio, and I think it was definitely helpful.
Why was having a more live-sounding record important to you? What was the motivation behind that?
The first record, [Cub], gets really wet behind the ears and we sort of fell into the trap of making quite a safe sounding record. I don’t think it was bad, it was just quite middle of the road in terms of the production — it didn’t really take any risks. I don’t think that was representative of how I felt, as a writer, how the band felt, how we sounded live. A lot of who we are is built on our live shows, and I don’t think [Cub] was an accurate representation. So I wanted to amend that with the second record, really.
I was reading that you feel this album is more of a full band representation, whereas you said your first was more of a solo focus on you as an artist. What was the process like making this record more intentionally representative of the full band?
It was a natural progression, really. After the first record, we took it out on tour and our guitarist [Oscar Browne] left to do his own thing and we got Harry [Fowler in his place], who’s an old friend of mine. When Harry joined, it was sort of the missing piece that we didn’t realize we needed, and it began to sound a lot more like us, and felt like our own sound. Everyone’s personalities began to naturally just come out within the music. By the time we went in to do the second record, there was real strong chemistry. It’s definitely a record that is greater than the sum of its parts.
You said the track “Superman” on the record was one of the quicker ones to come together, and it came together in about 10 or so minutes. Was there a song that was more challenging to piece together?
Yeah, the one that was a real teeth-puller was “Silver.” I remember I came up with the idea and I was late for a train and I had to get to the train for a work thing. I lost that moment and it took, like, a year to get to the place where I was ready to actually pen the lyrics. As usual with me [things were] super last minute, we were about to go in and actually cut the track, and I was up all night trying to get back to where I was mentally when I came up with the idea. So it was definitely a lesson to put the music first and kind of drop whatever you’re doing. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long and arduous process.
What would you say is the best place or way to listen to the record?
A dark room, no windows, one candle.
Do you hope listeners gain anything by listening to the album? Whether that’s any sort of message or any insight into your artistry?
I hope there’s at least this small fraction of people that will sit down and listen to it start to finish as an album. Because I think as a record, it really benefits from that sort of listening treatment. It is a world, and it is a journey and I think the songs don’t exist as well on their own, they kind of always need each other to create this atmosphere and this world to escape into. So I would urge people, if they can, to listen to it like that at least for the first few times, or for the first time.
