Dream-pop outfit Elastic Sleep have recently released their stellar new single ‘Leave You’ (a recent addition to “The Mixed-Tape”) ahead of the group’s forthcoming début E.P, due out on April 28th. Band member Chris Somers spoke to theLastMixedTape’s Stephen White about the upcoming record and Elastic Sleep’s evolving sound.
How does ‘Leave You’ relate to your previous single releases?
While I can’t really speak for ‘You Only Live Twice’, the songs we’ve written ourselves are deeply personal. They came out naturally as most of our songs have, anything non-natural doesn’t make it. ‘Leave You’ was a track we had made a demo of early on and we knew was something we wanted to hold on to.
How do Elastic Sleep write the songs, is it as a group or individually?
The first two tracks were written by myself and Muireann as almost a guideline of how we wanted things to sound. But pretty quickly that changed and everyone started to collaborate together and the music took on a life of it’s own.
What sort of indication is ‘Leave You’ to the overall sound of the upcoming E.P?
I think the E.P itself is more divisive sounding, although ‘Leave You’ is the lynch pin. If there’s a loose narrative between all the tracks that appear on it then ‘Leave You’ is at the centre of that. Because of the collaboration within the band the sound branches out. I’m slightly anxious for everyone to hear it actually, the other songs had this very specific almost shoegaze sound going on and this E.P is very different.
How did recording an E.P of songs differ from the individual single recordings?
Both the bass and the drums had to be recorded together, just to make things simpler and the lads play better when it’s together. Recording ‘Leave You’ was very strange though, we had done a version of it but there were some technical problems that made us have to do it again after the rest of the songs had been done. That was an intense session for many reasons, but it was worth it.
You mentioned that some of the record was tracked live. Do you consider how the recordings will translate when recorded live?
There’s definitely more room to expand on the songs live. We actually wrote a new song recently and played it when we supported Girl Band over the weekend and it took on a whole new direction towards the end. We extended the song but in a good way, although I was a bit petrified about it at the time because I was unsure of the structure (laughs). But it’s good not to think about it too much and try to get the basic feel of the songs across.
Do you think the E.P is a snapshot of where the band are now in terms of sound?
I don’t think it can be seen as a snapshot really. We had been rehearsing since June last year and booked a gig soon after that, the E.P itself was supposed to come out in September, so it’s more of a space of time. With the collaboration going on in the band it probably ranges from June to now in terms of a time frame.
Listen to Elastic Sleep’s current single ‘Leave You’ by clicking below. The E.P of the same name is out on April 28th via Big Tea Records and Fifa Records.