There's been a buzz about Death And Vanilla ever since their fantastically eerie self-titled EP arrived in 2010.
The Swedish trio (originally a duo, Marleen Nilsson and guitarist Anders Hansson were recently joined by keyboardist Magnus Bodin) record gorgeous, swoon-worthy dream pop that's rich in texture and atmosphere, anchored around Nilsson's often improvised vocals.
Their second album, however, is something else entirely. 'To Where The Wild Things Are' (Clash review HERE) builds on the band's strong psychedelic foundations, while also reaching out with a keener pop focus than before.
Ahead of its release and a handful of rare UK shows in May, we spoke to the band to find out more...
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Tell us a little about the origins of Death And Vanilla. When did you get together?
2007. We met through a mutual friend and we started talking about forming some kind of band soon after that. We didn't know what we were doing, we were just jamming. Then, out of nowhere, we wrote the track 'Run Rabbit Run' (from their 2010 EP) and that was the real starting point. It gave us direction. The first couple of years we did one song every six months or so and put them on MySpace, so it was a very slow start.
What were the starting points for the new album?
It's hard to say, we're just recording bits and pieces all the time. We had quite a lot of songs for this album and we were originally thinking about doing a double LP, but because we work really slowly we decided that it's more realistic for us just do a 'normal' LP!
Did you have any plan for what the record should sound like?
We wanted it to be a bit brighter than the first album, and also to experiment a bit more. The new album contains some of our most pop songs like 'California Owls' and 'Time Travel', but that's just one side of it. 'Something Unknown You Need To Know' is a six minute instrumental and doesn't sound like anything we've done before.
You recently released an improvised soundtrack to 'Vampyr'. Did that inform the direction of '...Wild Things' at all?
Not directly, but I think it made us more confident in our playing, and also our ability to go beyond the pop music format. It was great to be able to pull off something like that and it felt like a quite massive project at the time.
In February this year we performed a score for Roman Polanski's The Tenant at the CinemaScore festival in Spain. That was also a good challenge for us as we had to come up with two hours of material. Doing music in that way is hard work, but also very satisfying.
How was the recording process for '...Wild Things'?
We don't write songs and then go into a studio and record them as probably most bands do. The recording and writing process are the same for us. Our songs usually start with something we've recorded, like a bass line or a drum sample or something like that. Then we try different things and keep recording and kind of build songs from the recorded tracks. So it's difficult to say how long it took, but it was definitely a long period.
The cover art is lovely. How important is the visual side of things to the band?
Thanks! It's very important. We do all the artwork ourselves and we're not designers in any way, it just important that the cover art has the right feel to it, rather than just getting in someone who has no knowledge of the band to do some "nice" graphics for it.
You're playing the UK in a few weeks. Are you looking forward to it?
Yes, it's our third time, and we will come back again after the summer. We've also played in France and Denmark before. We will play shows around Europe in early fall. Really looking forward to that as well.
Can you recommend us an album and a film that inspired Wild Things in some way?
We always listen to tons of music so it's impossible to mention just one record that inspired the album, but here's a few: Pink Floyd's 'More' soundtrack, Sibylle Baier's 'Colour Green', Shabazz Palaces''Lese Majesty', Scott Walker's 'Scott 2', '3' and '4', Sun Ra's 'Discipline 27-11', Quarteto Em Cy's self-titled album, to name a few. There is no one special film but we've been watching lots of Argento films like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage.
What's next for the band?
We're currently working out how to play some of the songs from the album live. Since our songs usually are recorded in pieces and then edited together it's sometimes tricky to play them live. And to remember all the parts!
Which do you like best, the orange or blue vinyl version of the album?
It's really hard to choose, they both looks great! Marleen prefers the orange and Anders prefers the blue. Maybe that is why we ended up with two different ones in the first place, haha!
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Words: Will Salmon
Death and Vanilla are playing:
May
15 London Rough Trade East
15 London Birthdays
16 Brighton The Great Escape
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