aaamusic | On 22, Nov 2010

On the day of the release of new single ‘A4 In Ecstasi’ Kid Adrift confesses to AAAmusic!

AAAmusic: Hi, how are you doing?

Kid Adrift: Great thanks. I’m sitting with the band glitching drums and sipping a good Scotch Whiskey. Perfect!

AAAmusic: How is the album coming along? I read somewhere that you’re working with Steve Dubs, how is that?

KA: Yeh Steve is currently mixing tracks, we’re about half way through the album now. Steve’s amazing, he’s completely on our wavelength in terms of the sound we envisaged. He’s been very involved in working with The Chemical Brothers amongst other bands/music we really admire, we feel very privileged to have him working with us.

AAAmusic: Who else are you working with? With such a heavy production element to your output how important is it to control who you work with on that level?

KA: We’ve asked John Metcalfe to arrange strings on a track which is sounding stunning, kind of like a twisted modern day Eleanor Rigby with beats (John worked with Peter Gabriel on his latest album ‘Scratch My Back’). Although we’re open to collaboration on the album, the production is, like you say a large part of our sound so we tend to know what we want more than anyone else. I want the album to sound like a dark pop record being taken down to the west end of Glasgow by Son Lux/Bowie and having its face smashed through a window of distortion and noise!

AAAmusic: Are there any producers that you really admire?

KA: Son Lux is amazing. The sound is like some pulsating electro chaos with violins and pianos blooming out of it. I met up with him in New York in the summer and learned about some of the production techniques he uses, it’s insane. We played a crazy gig in this huge cathedral the other day and the DJ on before us Eddie Temple Morris  dropped the new Nero track, called ‘You and I’ I think – the that blew my mind, I was literally sweating. It was like Led Zep meets Dubstep.

AAAmusic: How has your re-location from Scotland to London affected your sound? Are you still very much in touch with your roots back there?

KA: Yes, very much so. London’s an exciting place to be, and the only place other than Scotland that I’ve really felt at home living in. Our music has always fused sounds and elements from different genres and I think living in London will only expose us to other exciting music to incorporate, we’re working with High Contrast and Distance on their upcoming albums.

AAAmusic: Are you excited for the release of ‘A4 In Ecstasy’?

KA: Definitely! We recently shot the video for A4 up in a Scottish boxing club and couldn’t be happier with the result, it really captures the motion and mood of the song.

AAAmusic: Your output has been compared to everything from Aphex Twin to Muse? How much have those bands influenced anything you have done? If not who are your main influences?

KA: I love both, I think Muse have the monopoly on use of pianos in electro music but I can’t resist! We’re massive fans of Aphex and lots of other electronic music and love to meld these sounds with that of our other influences. Three of us are classical pianists and we’re all into electro, classical, dubstep, noise music….it makes for an interesting mix.

AAAmusic: I remember when I first checked out your stuff there was a relatively small buzz about you, everything was pretty mysterious at that time and there wasn’t a lot of information to be found. How does it feel to have gone from that to having the 2009 Record of the Day Magazine’s Record of the Year, and being played by everyone from Huw Stephens to Zane Lowe?

KA: It’s crazy – I’ve always made music but a lot of it for my own listening and to keep myself entertained up in Clackmananshire. I didn’t anticipate anyone hearing Red Green and Blue when it was written, I couldn’t ever have foreseen it going out on Radio One.

AAAmusic: How did everything get started for you? When did you first start playing and recording?

KA: I travelled around a lot as a kid with my parents, we lived in Africa and Switzerland and I didn’t have many friends to be honest so I got really into writing, making music, reading.

AAAmusic: Is it something you have always wanted to do?

KA: I’ve always composed music so this is a dream job. There are a few artists whose music impressed upon me profoundly when I was growing up – Beck being one of them. I’ve always hoped that if we can create something which communicates a fraction of how clearly his music does to me, then I can’t ask for much more.

AAAmusic: ‘Red, Green and Blue’ is an absolutely incredible record: starting as a rasping piano ballad before descending into an urgent, surging industrial inspired electro soundscape. What is the main inspiration behind it?

KA: Thanks, there were quite a few things that went into that. I love philosophy and am always troubled by materialism, which implies that humans are just atoms and in a sense our personalities are just an illusion of billions of atoms making up chemicals which make up us. I find that idea so bizarre. I was with a girl at the time and realised I couldn’t accept that Love is just some kind of chemical reaction in the brain I believe it’s something unique and unquantifiable.

AAAmusic: You’ve been quoted as saying “Music has no clear use”, can you expand upon what you meant by that?

KA: Sure. This is related to the last question and I thought about the lyrics around the same time, what I mean is that it interests me that there’s no clear benefit of the arts to our survival. Yet the whole world throughout history has felt this desire to express something very real and present, but something which does not necessitate our basic survival like all our other thirsts. This is 100% why I write music and why, I think, it exists. I feel that art is a reflection of God.

AAAmusic: You’ve been performing live more and more over the past year? How has the transition been from recording in your bedroom to having a band together and actually playing live in front of an audience?

KA: Playing live is exciting for us all – it makes the hours of writing and recording come to life. Having the band with me has brought other dimensions to the music both live and in the studio as we’re all very different and bring something to the table.

AAAmusic: Having, regrettably not seen you live, what is the set up like – what instruments do you have around and what kind of gear?

KA: The set up is quite hectic – we use lots of keyboards, drums, guitar and vocals which we then assault with various samplers, looping pedals and launch pads amongst other contraptions. And there are usually battle wounds at the end of the set. We played a gig in this beautiful monastery last week and our keyboard player, Pete, ended up with blood running down his face from a head thrashing injury…It can get reasonably brutal.

AAAmusic: So when is the album due for release and do you have a name for it yet? And what can we expect from you in the future, have you got a tour lined up to co-inside with the release?

KA: Album will be out early next year but we’ll probably have a single or 2 out before. We have a tour lined up but our first gigs next year will be the Q magazine event in London and Eurosonics in Holland.

Author: Lauren Down

A4 In Ecstasi is out now