First of all we would like to know how your artistic life changed since the critical success of your previous “Love Can Prevail”?
It’s had an impact on who we’ve been able to work with for this latest LP, people like Just Blaze who heard of us from a mutual friend and invited us to his studio in Harlem to jam. The calibre of the people who want to rock with you.
Which was your approach to this new “The 11th Sky”, sound-wise and lyrics-wise, compared to your previous releases?
Lyrics wise the songs are little stories; little worlds within themselves. There are songs about android love, spiritual quests and smoking weed. The instrumentation for the LP is largely drum-machine and synthesizer based, we used a lot of 808s, 909s and synth keyboards like the roland RS09, SH101 and the roland jupiter… Also, one of the concepts behind this LP was putting real acoustic instruments together with drum machines and synthesizers.
Can you tell us what the title “The 11th Sky” actually means to you?
So, it’s a reference to a story from Māori mythology in which Tāne – the creator of mankind, forests and animals – climbs the twelve heavens and receives an audience with Io, an important god to the Māori who resides in the uppermost heaven. He gives Tāne new knowledge to aid the social, practical and creative thinking of man/womenkind. The album title plays on the idea that we are stuck at the 11th sky or heaven and that enlightenment is within our grasp.
You collaborated a lot with other vocalists in the past, this time we noticed that with the exception of Deva Mehal in March, all the vocals are sung by you. Can you tell us how did you come to this decision?
Including or not including other vocalists had always been an organic process and not one that we have masterminded really. We’ve been fortunate in the past to run into certain artists and next thing you know you are only on half of your own album. So this one I kept a bit more for myself!
Some of the tracks contained in this album made previously part of your EP “Aeons”, right?
I felt a little sad at the prospect of letting tracks like March, Golden Ladder and Aeons go out on an EP. I felt like “Man, this is my best work maybe I should hold off on an album”, but I also didn’t want to wait too long between releases either.
We don´t know much about the music scene in New Zealand, your country. Can you tell us something more about it?
Man, there is really some dope music coming out of these islands. You need to check out Cloud Michaels, Wild Bill Ricketts, Troy Kingi and Julien Dyne…
Will you tour around the world with a live show and, are there any chances to see you in Italy too?
Yes we are coming. If you know people working on your local arts festival then ask them to bring us out!
