Their most appealing and singular release yet

The downside of arriving in the midst of a good old-fashioned youthquake, as New Young Pony Club did during the fluorescent tie-dye brouhaha known as “nu rave” back in 2006, is that you tend to get lost once the dust has settled. Seven years on, they’ve slimmed down from five members to a duo of Tahita Bulmer and Andy Spence and shortened their name to NYPC. How do they stand up now that sounding a bit ’80s is no longer a daring retro move as much as it is the dominant sound of conventional pop?

Pretty well, actually. Previous albums Fantastic Playroom (2007) and The Optimist (2010) suffered from a certain fastidiousness and a lack of variation — in their band incarnation they were always more detached no-wave than ecstatic nu rave. NYPC loosens up considerably and throws itself into the electronics that were only a backdrop to its predecessors. The sound is richer, the moods more varied, folding in elation and openness as well as austerity, and the result is their most appealing and singular release yet.

The ups and downs of a draining career seem to have toughened them up and made them both braver and more perceptive. “You Used To Be A Man” splices OMD-style arpeggios to a bassy throb for a sad exploration of a lover falling apart; “Now I’m Your Gun” approximates an Augustus Pablo melodica motif for its study of a worsening bad romance. Best of all, singer Bulmer breaks her frosty seen-it-all persona to sing songs of real emotional heft: “Things Like You” is a yearning, moving affair, and it’s by some distance the best track they’ve yet made. New Young Pony Club used to be a fun component to a fleeting scene; NYPC are up there with Hot Chip as grown-up exponents of multi-mood electronic pop.

File under: Unnerving, serrated-edged, spacious art-punks who love dissonance and contrast

For fans of: Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Sonic Youth, Arab Strap, Xiu Xiu, The Birthday Party

From: Omaha, Nebraska

Personae: Jack Begley (guitar, vocals), Noah Sterba (guitar, vocals), Jeff Sedrel (bass), Kevin Donahue (drums)

Yuppies took a very long time to make their first album — the band formed in 2007 and has released a handful of singles and a split EP over the past few years, but their self-titled, full-length debut has just appeared on Parquet Courts’ label Dull Tools. It’s a terrifically unsettling record, flowing from quiet, spacious passages (with main vocalist Jack Begley muttering or chanting lyrics that sound like every phrase is in a separate set of quotation marks) to out-of-control punk slaloms like “Hitchin a Ride,” which Noah Sterba screams so hard his voice cracks. And the band’s years of playing together are evident in the way they run every song into the next, without a pause.

There’s a lot of history audible on Yuppies — the atonal hammer-and-release textures and shambling rhythms of some of these songs echo the late ’70s no wave scene, and Begley and Sterba’s voices recall the Midwestern punk rock of the ’80s. But it’s also an assured, startling take on the psychogeography of the Dust Belt landscape that spawned the band. “All right, all right, we’re going for a ride, whether you like it or not,” Begley snaps at the beginning of “A Ride,” and that’s Yuppies’ attitude, right there.

eMusic’s Douglas Wolk talked with Sterba as the band geared up for a month-long tour.

On the band’s origins in high school corridors:

Me, Kevin and Jack all grew up together. In high school, I was writing songs, and Jack was writing songs, and we knew Kevin played drums, so we started playing together. Our earliest stuff was very primitive and…”young.” We were learning to play our instruments as we were playing songs. As we’ve gone on, we’ve kind of gotten more competent. We graduated from high school in 2007, and then in probably 2010, Jeff joined — we’d just been guitars and drums, and we thought, “Oh man — we gotta have some low end!”

On geographical separation and making their first album after six years:

Jeff lives in Virginia now, and Jack lived in St. Louis for a year or two. We’ve only had two or three years of being in the same city as a band. But once we got Jeff, we couldn’t play with anyone else. Even if after this tour we can’t play for another year, we won’t stop being a band — we’ll just kind of try to work with what we have and where we are.

The album’s definitely been a long time coming. One or two of the songs on the album we’ve had for four or five years; there are a few that we’ve thrown out, then reclaimed and put on the record. Most of the songs flow together, but I’d almost say that’s not something we consciously did — we’ve had a lot of space between times when we could practice, so the songs form their relationship with each other. Which is pretty cool.

On their nonstop live sets and how that translated to the recording:

Our shows are high-energy and anxiety-ridden. There are a lot of moments of chaos. We don’t take any breaks between songs, although we’ve got a bunch of different sets. We don’t have very long attention spans; we try to push ourselves to do new things at every show. The first side of the album we did in one long take. We recorded it live except for the vocals, and we thought, “This could take all day if we keep fucking it up 15 minutes in,” but we got the whole thing in one take. The second side we did in two parts — the first few songs run together, and then the last two.

On “What’s That?”:

That was one of the coolest songs to be a part of. We never talked about the writing of that song, we just started playing, said, “That’s kinda cool!,” practiced it again and started playing it at shows. When it started out, it was so different from how it turned out on the record. We never once talked about the structure of the song until the day before we recorded it. It was a bizarre process to be part of, watching this thing form itself.

On what they do when they’re not being Yuppies:

Kevin and I play with Simon Joyner — I’ve been playing with him for three or four years, Kevin just joined the group this year. We just made a new record and it’s awesome — more of an experimental record than Simon’s ever done. Simon lent me a space with an 8-track, and I recorded a solo album where I play all the instruments — that was released on Unread Records. Jack had a solo tape close to a year ago. And Kevin and I work at a diner that our friend owns in Omaha. Jack also works in a restaurant, and Jeff works in a restaurant in Richmond.

On the band’s favorite reactions to their music:

I’ve had a lot of people come up to me after a show and say, “It was good, but it made me feel really weird.” To be able to conjure up an emotion in someone, just from the sounds we’re making — to be able to create a feeling and have them really feel it too — that’s so flattering to me.

Spanning three years but holding together as a single release

The ongoing Black Tar Prophecies sessions from Portland, Oregon, instrumental post-rockers Grails function like deep-space side ventures from their normal output. The first three prophecies came after the hypnotic, but monochromatic buzz of their second full-length album, 2004′s Redlight. The songs were culled from collaborations and rarities, and displayed the band working with elements of Krautrock, dub, ambient, psychedelia and classical.

The second batch, Black Tar Prophecies Vols. 4, 5 & 6, matches, and possibly exceeds, the potency of both the first Black Tar releases and their 2008 high-water mark LP Doomsdayer’s Holiday. The Vol. 4 tracks are from a 2010 EP, Vol. 5 from a split with Pharaoh Overlord and Vol. 6 is new and previously unreleased. Even though they span three years, the music holds together as if intended for a single release: From the wavering apocalyptic hum, ’80s videogame sound effects and bluesy electric guitar of “Wake Up Drill II,” the nightmarish samples and reverberating feedback of “New Drug II,” and the soft, steady beat, classical piano, strings and minor key bass melody of “A Mansion Has Many Rooms,” the collection has a fearlessly wide-ranging diversity that nonetheless folds into the anything-goes atmosphere Grails have cultivated through their career. Whether they are recalling early Pink Floyd, Can, Neu!, White Room-era KLF, Goblin, King Crimson and Guru Guru, or spaghetti westerns, Grails remain themselves, their only goals to enlighten themselves and their listeners.

eMusic’s Tobi Vail caught up with Maricich over the phone to discuss the New York City art mafia, hugging the audience and squeezing her heart into a meat grinder.

What has changed for The Blow since you put out Paper Television in 2006?

[In 2006] I lived in Portland and worked with Jona Bechtolt [of Yacht] and then I moved [to NYC] with Melissa Dyne. Working with Melissa is super different because we’re girlfriends — also because we’re girls, and girls communicate differently on creative projects. We talk about everything. My experience with boys is like, “I’m just gonna do it and it’ll be cool.” At least with us, we like exploring, philosophically and theoretically, all the options of how things could be —we’re as interested in the process as we are in the outcome. [Melissa] hasn’t done albums before. She’s a sound artist and works with physics and sound waves in her installation work, and she used to play cello. We treat it as a total experiment, and sometimes we make one version of a song and go, “Huh, what if we try it completely New Wave this time?” and redo it. So it’s a process of building models. Sometimes we build one model and then we look at it and say, “Let’s completely renovate it and try it in a different way,” as opposed to being like, “OK, we’re gonna make an album and we’re gonna go about it the most direct and businesslike manner.” Our endurance for working with the process and playing around with it is vast.

Can you talk about the technical process of arranging the songs electronically?

We didn’t feel committed to a particular identity as music makers. IYou’re starting with the void. We both really tripped out on that, the fact that you can put any sound from any source anywhere. We knew we didn’t want to take the sounds out of a computer program, so we sampled different live instruments and perfected the samples so they sounded really clean. We would use generic computer sounds to make a beat and then find sounds to replace so that it [sounded] three-dimensional and rich. We inherited a couple of really weird synthesizers and Melissa just played around with them and tried to find the weirdest things she could.

How has your approach to performance changed over the years?

Music audiences can be so unruly, like a mob. We are learning how to sculpt the mob — make connections and take [the audience] to interesting places. During the live show, [Melissa] performs on a riser that’s at the back of the room in front of the sound engineer and I perform on the main stage and we have the crowd in between us. On my stage, there’s generally nothing besides myself and maybe some lights. The live show is us just hugging the audience in between us. We use that as a platform to see what cool stuff we can make happen. Melissa has a really strong role, but doesn’t want to be the one everyone is looking at all the time. We’re both working the room. She is making the room super high-fidelity intimate; she sets it up so it sounds really good. Little modules of sound are penetrating as deep into people’s ears as they can and opening people up a lot — and then she’s playing the electronic instruments — like manipulating samples and fucking with delays.

How would you describe your music to your cool aunt?

I come from a history of being super influenced by Kimya Dawson, but over the years, and in the process of making this record, we’ve both leaned more toward the experimentation of the ’70s — Laurie Anderson, David Bowie and Brian Eno are big influences on this album. Also Bjork — she kind of led the way for talking about emotions in abstract and really intimate ways in her lyrics, not even rhyming sometimes, just straight-up describing. But the impetus from where I started from was definitely Kimya Dawson — the idea that you just pick up your guitar and you don’t have any resources and you don’t need any because your emotional honesty is enough to form a bond with the listener. She’s a really awesome songwriter, she can play guitar and she’s really perceptive.

But the swashbuckling adventure story of what it was like for us to make this record is that we basically just decided to squeeze our hearts into a meat grinder and see what came out. It’s still hard for us to describe the music. We didn’t think of about a genre or a style until after we were done. We were [essentially] jumping out of a plane or, like, taking pictures of ourselves falling and then seeing what they looked like. Style-wise we have no idea what this is, but it is emotionally resonant and honest so we feel like we are on track.

Are you still involved in a DIY or any kind of community in New York?

Community is hard to come by in New York. Everybody doesn’t live in the same neighborhood, so you have to unite along events, and the events we found ourselves uniting around are mostly within the queer art scene — what I call the “lesbian mafia of New York,” or I guess the “lesbian-trans-queer art mafia.” They don’t call themselves that, but that’s how I’ve thought about them. It’s a scene where they were like, “We need to make space for ourselves,” and really went about doing it and were successful and smart. To me, that is DIY: They didn’t see themselves represented in the world they were a part of — the art world — and were like, “OK, we’re gonna make ourselves be the people you wanna know.” That is super inspiring.

So what’s next?

The process of how we’ve been able to make sounds has arched through the sky and we’re watching it morph and change and grow. It’s like we wanted to create a planet but then it took massive time and energy and force just to get the materials and raw elements. And then they develop to a certain point and then you stop it and box it up and send it out to people. But that planet is still developing and growing and new things are evolving, because as we play the samples, looping and combining them with sounds from other songs and putting them all together — it’s all still changing. It’s super fertile. After the album was done, we got way better at it. It’s a growing living thing, it’s not a product. Now that things are all greased up and moving, we’re just gonna keep recording and capture more of it.

eMusic’s Tobi Vail caught up with Maricich over the phone to discuss the New York City art mafia, hugging the audience and squeezing her heart into a meat grinder.

What has changed for The Blow since you put out Paper Television in 2006?

[In 2006] I lived in Portland and worked with Jona Bechtolt [of Yacht] and then I moved [to NYC] with Melissa Dyne. Working with Melissa is super different because we’re girlfriends — also because we’re girls, and girls communicate differently on creative projects. We talk about everything. My experience with boys is like, “I’m just gonna do it and it’ll be cool.” At least with us, we like exploring, philosophically and theoretically, all the options of how things could be —we’re as interested in the process as we are in the outcome. [Melissa] hasn’t done albums before. She’s a sound artist and works with physics and sound waves in her installation work, and she used to play cello. We treat it as a total experiment, and sometimes we make one version of a song and go, “Huh, what if we try it completely New Wave this time?” and redo it. So it’s a process of building models. Sometimes we build one model and then we look at it and say, “Let’s completely renovate it and try it in a different way,” as opposed to being like, “OK, we’re gonna make an album and we’re gonna go about it the most direct and businesslike manner.” Our endurance for working with the process and playing around with it is vast.

Can you talk about the technical process of arranging the songs electronically?

We didn’t feel committed to a particular identity as music makers. IYou’re starting with the void. We both really tripped out on that, the fact that you can put any sound from any source anywhere. We knew we didn’t want to take the sounds out of a computer program, so we sampled different live instruments and perfected the samples so they sounded really clean. We would use generic computer sounds to make a beat and then find sounds to replace so that it [sounded] three-dimensional and rich. We inherited a couple of really weird synthesizers and Melissa just played around with them and tried to find the weirdest things she could.

How has your approach to performance changed over the years?

Music audiences can be so unruly, like a mob. We are learning how to sculpt the mob — make connections and take [the audience] to interesting places. During the live show, [Melissa] performs on a riser that’s at the back of the room in front of the sound engineer and I perform on the main stage and we have the crowd in between us. On my stage, there’s generally nothing besides myself and maybe some lights. The live show is us just hugging the audience in between us. We use that as a platform to see what cool stuff we can make happen. Melissa has a really strong role, but doesn’t want to be the one everyone is looking at all the time. We’re both working the room. She is making the room super high-fidelity intimate; she sets it up so it sounds really good. Little modules of sound are penetrating as deep into people’s ears as they can and opening people up a lot — and then she’s playing the electronic instruments — like manipulating samples and fucking with delays.

How would you describe your music to your cool aunt?

I come from a history of being super influenced by Kimya Dawson, but over the years, and in the process of making this record, we’ve both leaned more toward the experimentation of the ’70s — Laurie Anderson, David Bowie and Brian Eno are big influences on this album. Also Bjork — she kind of led the way for talking about emotions in abstract and really intimate ways in her lyrics, not even rhyming sometimes, just straight-up describing. But the impetus from where I started from was definitely Kimya Dawson — the idea that you just pick up your guitar and you don’t have any resources and you don’t need any because your emotional honesty is enough to form a bond with the listener. She’s a really awesome songwriter, she can play guitar and she’s really perceptive.

But the swashbuckling adventure story of what it was like for us to make this record is that we basically just decided to squeeze our hearts into a meat grinder and see what came out. It’s still hard for us to describe the music. We didn’t think of about a genre or a style until after we were done. We were [essentially] jumping out of a plane or, like, taking pictures of ourselves falling and then seeing what they looked like. Style-wise we have no idea what this is, but it is emotionally resonant and honest so we feel like we are on track.

Are you still involved in a DIY or any kind of community in New York?

Community is hard to come by in New York. Everybody doesn’t live in the same neighborhood, so you have to unite along events, and the events we found ourselves uniting around are mostly within the queer art scene — what I call the “lesbian mafia of New York,” or I guess the “lesbian-trans-queer art mafia.” They don’t call themselves that, but that’s how I’ve thought about them. It’s a scene where they were like, “We need to make space for ourselves,” and really went about doing it and were successful and smart. To me, that is DIY: They didn’t see themselves represented in the world they were a part of — the art world — and were like, “OK, we’re gonna make ourselves be the people you wanna know.” That is super inspiring.

So what’s next?

The process of how we’ve been able to make sounds has arched through the sky and we’re watching it morph and change and grow. It’s like we wanted to create a planet but then it took massive time and energy and force just to get the materials and raw elements. And then they develop to a certain point and then you stop it and box it up and send it out to people. But that planet is still developing and growing and new things are evolving, because as we play the samples, looping and combining them with sounds from other songs and putting them all together — it’s all still changing. It’s super fertile. After the album was done, we got way better at it. It’s a growing living thing, it’s not a product. Now that things are all greased up and moving, we’re just gonna keep recording and capture more of it.

Which is not to say they’ve forsaken their roots. They’ve still got punk attitude and country hearts, but the music on Blur the Line feels, on the whole, more thoughtful and controlled. The new confidence might explain why they’ve also decided to drop the shared “Darlin’” last name, embracing instead their real identities (Jessi Zazu, Nikki Kvarnes and Lynwood Regensburg) as opposed to the characters that had served as a sort of protection for so long.

While the Darlins were at a tour stop in Florida, eMusic’s Ashley Melzer spoke with founding guitarist Nikki Kvarnes about the Blur the Line and the band’s new attitude of self-acceptance.

How long after Screws Get Loose did you start thinking about the next album?

Immediately, I guess. We’re kind of always working on stuff. We set up a chunk of time over the winter where we were just focusing on that and we weren’t touring. But yeah, that’s something we’re always kind of working on.

Did you go in with certain ideas?

It kind of all just fell into place with what was going on in our lives collectively, me and Jessi especially.

Like what?

Just time to reflect on the past couple of years. Like, actually spend some time with ourselves and dive deep into some stuff that’s really personal. This is the first time — well, not the first time, but it was a different kind of way of writing the album. Jessi would work on her songs and I would work on my songs, lyrically, and then we’d come together and go, “Well, what about changing this?” or, “What do you mean by this?” It was just a different approach than trying to write really personal songs with another songwriter.

There does seem to be a level of patience about this new record. Is this the first work you’ve done with Roger Moutenout?

He was suggested to us by our manager a while ago. We did a 7″ with him and we did a couple other recordings with him. He is just a joy to work with. He’s helped us grow a whole lot. We love the studio. We love working with him. So we were all about working on the album with him and trying something different, working with a different producer, ’cause we’re kind of a different band now too.

What has that transition been like?

It’s been really good. It’s been gradual. Adrian started playing with us right before we went into the studio for a couple months, just fleshing out the songs and trying to tighten things up, talk about all the parts that we’re doing. Also, this is a transition because [in the past] we’ve always switched instruments. It’s always kind of been up in the air who plays what role. This is the first record where Jessi and I are playing guitar, we sing our parts, Lynnwood plays drums and Adrian plays bass. It’s always been kind of a clusterfuck of “Well, what do you want to do?” and on the last album my arm was broken, so I wasn’t able to play on the album.

Is there a reason why you wanted to streamline that way?

Yeah, it’s made us a way more solid band. It’s more defined what everyone does. It gives time to focus on exactly what it is that you’re doing and giving yourself a specific sound.

In looking back at your press over the years, you’re constantly being pigeonholed as “wild women” or reckless. How do you feel about that?

I mean, I understand why, because when we first started out we were really wild and crazy. We were just so excited to be in a band, we were just going all the way, all the time. There was some focus on music, but I think the performance and engaging people was what we were concentrating on, whereas now it’s a little bit more introverted. We still really want to interact with audience members and we want it to be an experience. And, whatever, people can think whatever they want about us, but they’ll know in the future what this album is and what the band is, and that it’s not just, “Let’s get drunk and party. These are a bunch of fun, silly songs.” There’s some depth behind it and we’re exposing ourselves a little bit more instead of these characters we’ve built over the years.

Listening to the record, I almost felt a level of regret in regard to that. Do you think that’s a theme? Like the song “Optimist” seems to have that as a crux of it.

Jessi wrote that, but no, no, not regret. It’s less regret and maybe just more awareness of how people perceive you. It’s not a song about regret at all. It’s about being an optimist and you realize that maybe not everyone’s as optimistic about what you’re endeavors are or, I don’t know, getting a hard time because you’re doing what you want to be doing. This is really broad — I’m being vague about it because I don’t want to describe a song that she wrote, because I’m sure she has way more to say about it than I do.

Well, which of your songs on the album do you think captures that theme of identity most for you?

Each one of the songs are reflections of who we are and sides of ourselves. “In the Wilderness,” that’s this idea of people being wild, but it’s deeper than that. It’s more about struggling to want to be in a mysterious place, or the depths of your subconscious and how hard it is to grasp imagination for this generation. I want people to know there’s this other side of me that’s very in touch with, I don’t know, the animalistic nature of man and woman and the facades that everyone puts up. That’s kind of a representation of the album: the man and woman and the black and white and the opposites of everything, and creating a balance between the two.

Right, I think there’s a part of the album that’s a voice for the misfits, people on the fringe. Or maybe just people who are comfortable with sexuality and vulnerability.

Absolutely, because there has to be a balance. You can’t just be this overly confident person throwing all your ideas out there and being like, “This is the way things are.” You have to be humble and you have to be vulnerable in order to grow and to be optimistic and able to just expose yourself as a whole human being.

Were you worried about the way the cover of the album art would be received at all?

Oh, no. I mean, there’s a reason why we put it out there. We feel like that represents what this album is and who we are and to break down that whole like idea of people pigeonholing us, to just be like, “This is us. This is a part of us and this is us all together and this is what the band is now.”

What do you want a listener to take away, to hear in the difference from Screws Get Loose to Blur the Line?

Maybe just kind of identifying with themselves, being like, “Whoa, I feel that way about myself, and I didn’t even really know I felt that way about myself.” There’s a lot of self-realization in this album on both sides, me and Jessi. The songs we wrote are like, “This is OK. I’m going to show my beauty, all my ugliness and all my fears and all my strengths,” and maybe just for someone to realize that it’s okay to be fucked up, but also be really strong and intelligent, simultaneously. I guess, just self-acceptance.

Which is not to say they’ve forsaken their roots. They’ve still got punk attitude and country hearts, but the music on Blur the Line feels, on the whole, more thoughtful and controlled. The new confidence might explain why they’ve also decided to drop the shared “Darlin’” last name, embracing instead their real identities (Jessi Zazu, Nikki Kvarnes and Lynwood Regensburg) as opposed to the characters that had served as a sort of protection for so long.

While the Darlins were at a tour stop in Florida, eMusic’s Ashley Melzer spoke with founding guitarist Nikki Kvarnes about the Blur the Line and the band’s new attitude of self-acceptance.

How long after Screws Get Loose did you start thinking about the next album?

Immediately, I guess. We’re kind of always working on stuff. We set up a chunk of time over the winter where we were just focusing on that and we weren’t touring. But yeah, that’s something we’re always kind of working on.

Did you go in with certain ideas?

It kind of all just fell into place with what was going on in our lives collectively, me and Jessi especially.

Like what?

Just time to reflect on the past couple of years. Like, actually spend some time with ourselves and dive deep into some stuff that’s really personal. This is the first time — well, not the first time, but it was a different kind of way of writing the album. Jessi would work on her songs and I would work on my songs, lyrically, and then we’d come together and go, “Well, what about changing this?” or, “What do you mean by this?” It was just a different approach than trying to write really personal songs with another songwriter.

There does seem to be a level of patience about this new record. Is this the first work you’ve done with Roger Moutenout?

He was suggested to us by our manager a while ago. We did a 7″ with him and we did a couple other recordings with him. He is just a joy to work with. He’s helped us grow a whole lot. We love the studio. We love working with him. So we were all about working on the album with him and trying something different, working with a different producer, ’cause we’re kind of a different band now too.

What has that transition been like?

It’s been really good. It’s been gradual. Adrian started playing with us right before we went into the studio for a couple months, just fleshing out the songs and trying to tighten things up, talk about all the parts that we’re doing. Also, this is a transition because [in the past] we’ve always switched instruments. It’s always kind of been up in the air who plays what role. This is the first record where Jessi and I are playing guitar, we sing our parts, Lynnwood plays drums and Adrian plays bass. It’s always been kind of a clusterfuck of “Well, what do you want to do?” and on the last album my arm was broken, so I wasn’t able to play on the album.

Is there a reason why you wanted to streamline that way?

Yeah, it’s made us a way more solid band. It’s more defined what everyone does. It gives time to focus on exactly what it is that you’re doing and giving yourself a specific sound.

In looking back at your press over the years, you’re constantly being pigeonholed as “wild women” or reckless. How do you feel about that?

I mean, I understand why, because when we first started out we were really wild and crazy. We were just so excited to be in a band, we were just going all the way, all the time. There was some focus on music, but I think the performance and engaging people was what we were concentrating on, whereas now it’s a little bit more introverted. We still really want to interact with audience members and we want it to be an experience. And, whatever, people can think whatever they want about us, but they’ll know in the future what this album is and what the band is, and that it’s not just, “Let’s get drunk and party. These are a bunch of fun, silly songs.” There’s some depth behind it and we’re exposing ourselves a little bit more instead of these characters we’ve built over the years.

Listening to the record, I almost felt a level of regret in regard to that. Do you think that’s a theme? Like the song “Optimist” seems to have that as a crux of it.

Jessi wrote that, but no, no, not regret. It’s less regret and maybe just more awareness of how people perceive you. It’s not a song about regret at all. It’s about being an optimist and you realize that maybe not everyone’s as optimistic about what you’re endeavors are or, I don’t know, getting a hard time because you’re doing what you want to be doing. This is really broad — I’m being vague about it because I don’t want to describe a song that she wrote, because I’m sure she has way more to say about it than I do.

Well, which of your songs on the album do you think captures that theme of identity most for you?

Each one of the songs are reflections of who we are and sides of ourselves. “In the Wilderness,” that’s this idea of people being wild, but it’s deeper than that. It’s more about struggling to want to be in a mysterious place, or the depths of your subconscious and how hard it is to grasp imagination for this generation. I want people to know there’s this other side of me that’s very in touch with, I don’t know, the animalistic nature of man and woman and the facades that everyone puts up. That’s kind of a representation of the album: the man and woman and the black and white and the opposites of everything, and creating a balance between the two.

Right, I think there’s a part of the album that’s a voice for the misfits, people on the fringe. Or maybe just people who are comfortable with sexuality and vulnerability.

Absolutely, because there has to be a balance. You can’t just be this overly confident person throwing all your ideas out there and being like, “This is the way things are.” You have to be humble and you have to be vulnerable in order to grow and to be optimistic and able to just expose yourself as a whole human being.

Were you worried about the way the cover of the album art would be received at all?

Oh, no. I mean, there’s a reason why we put it out there. We feel like that represents what this album is and who we are and to break down that whole like idea of people pigeonholing us, to just be like, “This is us. This is a part of us and this is us all together and this is what the band is now.”

What do you want a listener to take away, to hear in the difference from Screws Get Loose to Blur the Line?

Maybe just kind of identifying with themselves, being like, “Whoa, I feel that way about myself, and I didn’t even really know I felt that way about myself.” There’s a lot of self-realization in this album on both sides, me and Jessi. The songs we wrote are like, “This is OK. I’m going to show my beauty, all my ugliness and all my fears and all my strengths,” and maybe just for someone to realize that it’s okay to be fucked up, but also be really strong and intelligent, simultaneously. I guess, just self-acceptance.

File under: Dour but hooky jangle-pop with a decidedly Anglophilic edge

For fans of: The Smiths, The Housemartins, The Lucksmiths, The Go-Betweens

From: Brooklyn, by way of Florida, by way of Connecticut

Personae: Andrew Marr (vocals/guitar), Jared O'Connel (bass), John Barinaga (guitar), Jake Beal (drums)

Ski Lodge’s debut Big Heart opens with a jangle and a pout, a tumble of giddy guitars, a handclap drum track and frontman Andrew Marr sighing, “You don’t have to be like me/ You don’t have to make the same mistakes.” And while the go-to easy critical reference point for this Brooklyn band has been another band with a Marr in it, Big Heart is more than a mere Manchester mimeograph. Its songs sway and sashay, guitars wreathing the edges like fine lace on velvet shirt sleeves. But all that frilliness masks a bruised heart: Throughout Big Heart, Marr laments his inability to connect with lovers and friends and his frustrations with his own shortcomings.

eMusic’s editor-in-chief met up with Marr at a New York coffee shop to talk about Florida, emotional alienation and the perils of teenage drug culture.

On the early influence of the Grateful Dead:

I was in a jam band in high school. We did a lot of Grateful Dead and Phish songs. I started to sing a little bit for the first time in that band. I still respect the Grateful Dead. I was obsessed with them for a while, then I went through a phase where I started listening to more indie music and thought, “Well, I can’t really like the Grateful Dead and Phish if I’m liking this other music.” I’m kind of getting over that now, and realizing that they were great songwriters, and that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. I think a lot of the distaste for those bands has to do with the type of people who like that music and not the music itself. I mean, have you ever been to a Phish show? It’s such a ridiculous scene.

On the downside of growing up in a wealthy community:

I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. It’s pretty suburban — it’s about 45 minutes from New York. It’s a pretty wealthy town — that’s usually why people have heard of it, though my family wasn’t super wealthy. It was a great place to grow up, but it’s kind of fucked up also. Kids there just have access to a lot of money. There are a lot of drugs, and that had a big impact on me. High school basically revolved around doing drugs and trying to do as little school work as possible. I was fully in it. I started by just experimenting [with drugs] with friends in middle school — a lot of my friends had older brothers, so it was just out of curiosity mainly. But then I just fell into that group of people, and that was just what we did. It got bad. I crashed a couple cars, so my parents kind of caught on after that. [Pause.] They were their cars.

On being exiled in Florida:

I went there for rehab — I think a lot of people end up there for the same reason — and then I just got stuck there. I started in Del Rey Beach and then moved a little north to the West Palm Beach area. I was there for four years. I didn’t really like anything about it, to be honest. I just kind of stuck around because I couldn’t really get my shit together. A year or two before I moved up here I finally got a band together and we played out a little bit down there. The scene there, there’s just not much going on. Touring bands don’t really visit there much. Miami has a pretty good venue, but it’s just way out of the way from where I was. I saw Radiohead while I was down there, but not really much else.

On his slow departure from the jam-band scene:

A friend of mine played [Death Cab for Cutie's] “I Will Follow You into the Dark” on guitar one time, and he was singing it, and I was like, “That’s an awesome song — who sings that?” And he told me. And I got really into Plans and Transatlanticism, and I listened to them a lot. That was the first band in that world. I got into the Shins right around that same time, too. So then when I was in Florida, I was writing a lot of Death Cab-inspired songs on the piano and just recording them into my laptop. At some point I was just like, “I want to start writing on the guitar — I’m kind of missing this whole other feel.” So I started messing around with it on my own and wrote songs based on my ability. As I’ve gotten better on the guitar, my songs have gotten a little more advanced than they were initially.

On songwriting as biography, and therapy:

None of the songs on Big Heart were narratives about other people. I’m more of a biographer. I get these little snippets of ideas and I try to piece them all together. “Anything to Hurt You” is just about being a bad influence on somebody else — looking at my mistakes, and saying to someone else that they don’t have to go through the same shit. And the title track is about a death, a figurative death. I’ve always had a hard time connecting with people — both knowing what other people are thinking and telling people what I’m thinking. Songwriting is a way for me to speculate on what relationships are really like, or what another person’s intentions were when I really have no idea. So the title track is a personal song about my inability to open up to people — in relationships, specifically. My girlfriend used to say I had no heart. And she was fucking around with me, but that’s what inspired me to think, “What does it feel like to not have a heart? And what does it feel like to open yourself up but then have your heart crushed?” That song for me is about the struggle between closing yourself off to everything versus opening yourself up and dealing with pain. I’ve gotten better — I’m going to therapy, and I’ve gotten better at telling people what’s going on in my life, but before that I was totally closed off. So I think songwriting is a useful tool for me. It’s part of my process.

File under: Dour but hooky jangle-pop with a decidedly Anglophilic edge

For fans of: The Smiths, The Housemartins, The Lucksmiths, The Go-Betweens

From: Brooklyn, by way of Florida, by way of Connecticut

Personae: Andrew Marr (vocals/guitar), Jared O'Connel (bass), John Barinaga (guitar), Jake Beal (drums)

Ski Lodge’s debut Big Heart opens with a jangle and a pout, a tumble of giddy guitars, a handclap drum track and frontman Andrew Marr sighing, “You don’t have to be like me/ You don’t have to make the same mistakes.” And while the go-to easy critical reference point for this Brooklyn band has been another band with a Marr in it, Big Heart is more than a mere Manchester mimeograph. Its songs sway and sashay, guitars wreathing the edges like fine lace on velvet shirt sleeves. But all that frilliness masks a bruised heart: Throughout Big Heart, Marr laments his inability to connect with lovers and friends and his frustrations with his own shortcomings.

eMusic’s editor-in-chief met up with Marr at a New York coffee shop to talk about Florida, emotional alienation and the perils of teenage drug culture.

On the early influence of the Grateful Dead:

I was in a jam band in high school. We did a lot of Grateful Dead and Phish songs. I started to sing a little bit for the first time in that band. I still respect the Grateful Dead. I was obsessed with them for a while, then I went through a phase where I started listening to more indie music and thought, “Well, I can’t really like the Grateful Dead and Phish if I’m liking this other music.” I’m kind of getting over that now, and realizing that they were great songwriters, and that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. I think a lot of the distaste for those bands has to do with the type of people who like that music and not the music itself. I mean, have you ever been to a Phish show? It’s such a ridiculous scene.

On the downside of growing up in a wealthy community:

I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. It’s pretty suburban — it’s about 45 minutes from New York. It’s a pretty wealthy town — that’s usually why people have heard of it, though my family wasn’t super wealthy. It was a great place to grow up, but it’s kind of fucked up also. Kids there just have access to a lot of money. There are a lot of drugs, and that had a big impact on me. High school basically revolved around doing drugs and trying to do as little school work as possible. I was fully in it. I started by just experimenting with friends in middle school — a lot of my friends had older brothers, so it was just out of curiosity mainly. But then I just fell into that group of people, and that was just what we did. It got bad. I crashed a couple cars, so my parents kind of caught on after that. [Pause.] They were their cars.

On being exiled in Florida:

I went there for rehab — I think a lot of people end up there for the same reason — and then I just got stuck there. I started in Del Rey Beach and then moved a little north to the West Palm Beach area. I was there for four years. I didn’t really like anything about it, to be honest. I just kind of stuck around because I couldn’t really get my shit together. A year or two before I moved up here I finally got a band together and we played out a little bit down there. The scene there, there’s just not much going on. Touring bands don’t really visit there much. Miami has a pretty good venue, but it’s just way out of the way from where I was. I saw Radiohead while I was down there, but not really much else.

On his slow departure from the jam-band scene:

A friend of mine played [Death Cab for Cutie's] “I Will Follow You into the Dark” on guitar one time, and he was singing it, and I was like, “That’s an awesome song — who sings that?” And he told me. And I got really into Plans and Transatlanticism, and I listened to them a lot. That was the first band in that world. I got into the Shins right around that same time, too. So then when I was in Florida, I was writing a lot of Death Cab-inspired songs on the piano and just recording them into my laptop. At some point I was just like, “I want to start writing on the guitar — I’m kind of missing this whole other feel.” So I started messing around with it on my own and wrote songs based on my ability. As I’ve gotten better on the guitar, my songs have gotten a little more advanced than they were initially.

On songwriting as biography, and therapy:

None of the songs on Big Heart were narratives about other people. I’m more of a biographer. I get these little snippets of ideas and I try to piece them all together. “Anything to Hurt You” is just about being a bad influence on somebody else — looking at my mistakes, and saying to someone else that they don’t have to go through the same shit. And the title track is about a death, a figurative death. I’ve always had a hard time connecting with people — both knowing what other people are thinking and telling people what I’m thinking. Songwriting is a way for me to speculate on what relationships are really like, or what another person’s intentions were when I really have no idea. So the title track is a personal song about my inability to open up to people — in relationships, specifically. My girlfriend used to say I had no heart. And she was fucking around with me, but that’s what inspired me to think, “What does it feel like to not have a heart? And what does it feel like to open yourself up but then have your heart crushed?” That song for me is about the struggle between closing yourself off to everything versus opening yourself up and dealing with pain. I’ve gotten better — I’m going to therapy, and I’ve gotten better at telling people what’s going on in my life, but before that I was totally closed off. So I think songwriting is a useful tool for me. It’s part of my process.

Few jazz masters have seen their reputations yo-yo like Ahmad Jamal, now ascendant again, to judge by Saturday Morning, a French studio session recorded early in 2013 at age 82-and-a-half. There was a time when Jamal was considered disreputably dainty, a mere crowd-pleaser playing fussy, corseted arrangements of pretty tunes. The opening “Back to the Future” may serve as (re)introduction to the two-fisted Jamal — product of Pittsburgh, that font of piano talent: Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Dodo Marmarosa, Erroll Garner, Sonny Clark, Horace Parlan.

“Back to the Future” is kicked along by a delayed-second-beat Cuban syncopation via New Orleans’s Herlin Riley, who’d had an ’80s stint with the pianist, and favors a tight, in-the-pocket stance throughout — his cooking more about the hi-hat slapping shut than a ringing ride cymbal. There’s funk in Reginald Veal’s bass grooves too, not least when he doubles Jamal’s left hand for a fat reinforced foundation — as on the longer take of the title track, where after riding the groove a good while, the pianist takes some weird side trips. “The Line”‘s deep groove has more than a little dub reggae in it.

From early on, Jamal has been a great and witty quoter, studding solos with bits of odd songs from all over — quoting his own ’50s benchmark “Pavanne” on “Firefly,” the Animals’ “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” on “One,” and the Association’s 1967 hit “Windy” near the end of “Silver” (an homage to pianist Horace). On Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad,” Jamal keeps divvying in snatches of Duke’s “Just Squeeze Me” and Ellington’s piano intro to Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train,” in effect juggling three tunes at once.

Not that the album is perfect; a loose and discursive “I’m in the Mood for Love” makes me long for his old trio’s taut economy. Rounding out the quartet, percussionist Manolo Badrena abets the Latin polyrhythms on bongos and conga, but also employs gizmos that should have been moth-balled long ago: flexatones, chime racks and whistles.

Jamal has been making deep-groove records for awhile — the 2011 recording Blue Moon, for instance. His modern stuff is splashier than the pristinely clean and precise jazz he played at first, but he was already using Afro-Caribbean rhythms back then. By the early ’50s, many small jazz bands had caught a mild Latin bug, adding a conga or bongo player. Jamal’s first trio had no drummer at all, but his under-praised guitarist Ray Crawford often mimicked bongos, slapping strings against the neck or pickup screws — as he did on “Will You Still Be Mine” or the spry Jamal arrangement of the kids’ song “Billy Boy” that other pianists cribbed. Crawford’s mock-bongos echoed on even after Jamal replaced him with kit drummers — notably Vernel Fournier, another New Orleanean bringing those second-line beats. (The classic statement from that trio is 1958′s live At the Pershing, one of the records that kept Chess/Argo afloat.)

Jamal’s trio music was so strikingly designed and cleanly executed that some critics dismissed it as cocktail music, until Miles Davis spoke up, pointing to Jamal’s influence on his own music — the understatement, use of silence and open space, and melodic orientation as an improviser. The several tunes Jamal wrote or recorded that Miles covered made his admiration plain — including “Billy Boy” and “Ahmad’s Blues,” features for Davis’s admiring pianist Red Garland. (Even more than Miles, Jamal exploits contrasting dynamics, very soft versus grandly loud: “I still hear orchestras in my head,” he told drummer Kenny Washington in 2003.)

Less obviously influential on Davis’s conception was Jamal’s way of tweaking a song’s form: adding interludes or tags (extended endings), or improvising over a form that differs from the melody’s. For the trio, every tune was a fresh project, a specific object with distinctive features to draw out. Miles really capitalized on those ideas in his great 1960s quintet — though sideman Cannonball Adderley had noted that very particular Jamal influence by 1959.

That was the year of Miles’s Kind of Blue, and the rise of modal improvising on unrelated scales. That album figures in a little whirlwind of serial influences, with Jamal at its center. In 1955, his trio with Crawford and bassist Israel Crosby recorded “Pavanne,” a 1935 light classic from composer Morton Gould’s Symphonette No. 2. Per Gould (and the orchestra in Jamal’s head), at around 1:30 they go into a holding pattern on one chord, then move it up a half step. They didn’t improvise on that episode; Crawford played a slinky little melody that sounded like a spontaneous fill, lifted straight from the Symphonette. But Miles liked that modulating holding pattern enough to build his classic blowing tune “So What” on it. And Miles’s sideman John Coltrane so liked improvising on that same form, he recycled it into his own “Impressions” two years later, borrowing Crawford’s “Pavanne” guitar lick for the melody — probably not realizing it originated with Morton Gould.

With the 1960s, Jamal’s reputation began to wane again, as he made albums with choirs, strings and electric piano. One of the first jazz gigs I ever saw, in 1974, remains one of the oddest: For the first set Jamal played his current single, the theme from M*A*S*H, for 45 minutes. The second set, he did it again.

Miles Davis in his 1989 autobiography lamented that Jamal was (again) underrated. After that, the pianist gradually ascended to elder statesman status. The NEA declared him a Jazz Master in ’94, and he worked and recorded regularly. He became easy to take for granted. Then a record like Saturday Morning comes along to remind you he can still deliver.

When Moby requested we interview Cold Specks as part of his takeover of eMusic, we were all too happy to oblige. The debut from pseudonymous songwriter Al Spx topped our list of eMusic’s Best Albums of 2012, and her live show had grown more riveting and more assured each time we saw her. Her performance on Moby’s record Innocents contains all of the things that made her first album so stunning — enigmatic lyrics, deeply-felt vocals and a free-floating but undeniable sense of spirituality. eMusic’s editor-in-chief J. Edward Keyes caught up with Spx by phone to discuss her new record, her collaboration with Moby and her paralyzing perfectionism.

I’m interviewing you at Moby’s request, because he’s taking over our site for a week, but it’s kind of convenient — your album was our No. 1 record of last year.

I heard about that!

So I thought this would be a good time to see what you’ve been up to since then. Where are you right now?

I’m in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I’m in a studio recording some songs for the next record.

How long have you been working on that?

Well. I don’t know. It’s kind of — [pauses]. Some of the songs have existed for a while, some are brand new. We didn’t start tracking until maybe a month ago.

So there were still some songs from your original batch that didn’t make it on to I Predict a Graceful Expulsion?

There’s just one. It’s existed in many forms, and I finally forced the son of a bitch to give in recently. I won’t tell you which one. It’ll ruin the surprise.

I was going to ask if it was the one you were playing on tour.

Well, actually, OK — I got that wrong. There’s two that have existed in a few different forms. The one that you’re speaking of — where did you see me play?

I saw you at Glasslands, then at Mercury Lounge, then at Piano’s.

OK. So you probably heard a bunch of the new ones. There’s a song… [stops suddenly] I don’t want to say!

You don’t have to!

Oh, I’ll just say it, whatever. There’s a song called “All Flesh is Grass” and a song called “Let Loose the Dogs.” “All Flesh is Grass” is probably written around the same time as “Blank Maps,” but it didn’t make the first record because I hadn’t figured out the arrangement for it, and it’s taken a couple of years to get right. The other one was written when I first started touring.

You talk about these songs existing in a few different forms — how do you know when to say “stop”?

I know it’s done because when I listen to it, I become filled with delight and satisfaction, and I know that I can’t make it any better. My producer, Jim, and the assistant here are probably realizing that I’m incredibly anal when it comes to the studio, but these songs exist forever, so I just want to get them right. I’m kind of a perfectionist. I want and I need for everything to be absolutely as perfect as I can make it.

What was the moment you started becoming aware that the first record was really resonating with people?

I guess when I started to tour the record, I would notice the crowds start to get bigger. We’d be playing tiny shows in small towns in the middle of nowhere — like, say, Denton, Texas — and there would be loads of people who knew and loved the songs. I guess that’s when I started to realize that I was doing something right.

One of the things that really struck me about the record was the way you took Bible verses and either recontextualize them or manipulate them in certain ways. How conscious a choice was that?

Not very conscious. The record is a representation of loss in many forms — mostly just loss of several relationships. I studied English and noticed Bible verses are common in literature. It’s the best piece of fiction in the world as far as I’m concerned. There are some really beautiful lines in it, and some lines really just stuck out to me. I don’t really like to go into detail about what the songs are about. I’m a very private person and my songs are very vague and I really do love it when people interpret it and take it in different ways. I think it’s incredibly fascinating.

A lot of the story around the early record was about the falling out between you and your parents. From what I’ve read, it sounds like things are better now?

It’s all good in the hood. It was kind of blown out of proportion in the early days. It was mostly just growing pains, really. My parents wanted the best for me and they didn’t necessarily believe that music was the best for me at first, but they’ve come around. It’s all love.

Does that mean you’ll start using your real name?

[Laughs.] No, I’m a very private person. I write music and I enjoy doing it, but because I do it, I think it’s completely unnatural to perform day in and day out and give yourself to people — a collection of strangers — every night. I’d much rather have a stage name and remove myself from it all.

So you take on this persona of Al Spx to maintain a sense of self.

That’s exactly what it is. Al Spx is a character, and she exists because I created a project called Cold Specks, and people kept asking me who Cold Specks was. And I thought I’d given enough at first, but evidently I hadn’t [laughs]. So I came up with a stage name, and that’s all I’m willing to give. I just got so uncomfortable attaching my real name and myself to songs that are incredibly personal and have the tendency to be morbid. It’s not a reflection of me, and I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the songs completely defining me as a human being, because it’s just one side of me. So I have a stage name.

I’d imagine it also allows you a degree of sanity because you can step out of that character when you’re not performing.

Exactly. When I’m not touring, I go back to the girl I am and remember who I am as a human being. It can be incredibly grueling at times. Al Spx is a tough bitch and she can deal with that, but when I’m at home, I want to just be me.

One of my favorite lines is on “Blank Maps,” where you sing “I am a goddamn believer.” What are some things you believe in?

I’m not sure. I’m still figuring it out. That particular song is — [pauses]. That particular song is about a boy, and I think I was just trying to let him know some things.

Have any of the people these songs are about heard them?

Probably. [Laughs] I’m not sure. I don’t know. I’d rather not say.

Let’s talk about the new record. Thematically, how do the songs relate to the songs on the first record?

It’s different. They’re louder. There aren’t any acoustic guitars — I’ve been joking that I’ve gone all “Judas” on this record [laughs].

Is this for real, or are you doing that thing you like to do to interviewers where you pull my leg and then I report it?

[Laughs.] I’m not! I’m not. I’ve stopped doing that. It’s more playful this record. The first record was a delicate record, and it was a moment in time and a reflection of a fragile girl. For this record, I’ve grown a lot as a human being. The songs on the first record were written when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, and I’ve grown a lot since then. I think I also got a little tired of being depicted as an “emotional songwriter.” That sort of seeped into my songwriting. So this one’s just playful.

So more major-key songs?

I actually can’t answer that for you, but only because I don’t know anything about music. I play in two tunings, and they’re both, I guess, minor tunings — it’s always gonna be minor with Cold Specks — but I don’t actually know anything about music. I play guitar and write all the songs and I sit down with the boys and tell them what I want. Like I said, I’m incredibly anal in the studio.

I’m curious as to how you think other members of your band would describe working with you.

Chris Cundy, the woodwind player, has a phrase — he says I’m “predictably unpredictable.” And that’s accurate. I’m the most disgustingly indecisive person. I think I know what I want, but I really don’t.

Let’s talk a little bit about the collaboration with Moby — how did that come about?

We’re on the same label, Mute, and I think he was looking for singers and Daniel Miller from Mute mentioned me, so he looked up all my stuff and really liked it, and we just started working together.

Was the song already finished by the time it got to you?

“A Case for Shame,” he sent an instrumental. There’s a studio in London that I work in occasionally and I recorded some vocals and sent them back to him. It was a very creative and collaborative setup. The other song we actually recorded in his home studio. I had a day off on my last North American tour, so we stopped in L.A. and I went over to his house and recorded the second song. Very quickly, actually. He already had the instrumental and I had it for weeks but couldn’t come up with anything. The night before [we were recording] I scribbled some notes on my hotel notepad and went in and we did it in about an hour.

How is his process different from yours?

He’s not an anal piece of shit like I am.

That seems like you’re being pretty hard on yourself!

I like to think I’m funny with my harshness! [Laughs.] He goes with the flow, Moby. He doesn’t overanalyze. It’s something I learned from working with him. I can spend a lot of time just picking at things and just doesn’t do that. He’s a very free and open and creative man and he’s not at all disgustingly over analytical. It’s a really refreshing thing.

I’m sure some of that comes with experience, though.

Yeah, I’m only making my second record now. He’s had a lot of time to grow as an artist, so he knows what he wants and he gets there quickly.

I know you have a lot of influences outside of music. I was curious to know what you’re reading now.

There’s a book by Milan Kundera called Immortality that I just picked up the other day.

What kinds of books do you tend to be attracted to?

I like really descriptive stuff, and I like really short and sweet stuff as well. I like ‘em all.

Are you living in Canada when you’re not on the road?

I don’t live anywhere. I just finished touring. I’ll probably be moving back to London soon. I like it because it’s a very big city — I think it’s the best city in the world. It’s huge — there are cities within the city. So many people, so many things to do. It’s just a wonderful city.

Since Moby asked us to interview you as one of his favorite artists, I was wondering who you’ve been listening to lately and who you admire.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Scott Walker. Michael Gira from Swans. There’s this band from the UK called Savages that I really like.

I could almost hear a collaboration between you and Scott Walker.

Oh God, I would love that. The guy who did our latest music video did the video for that song “Epizootics!” from the last Scott Walker record. That’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to Scott Walker.

Moby first broke through in 1991 as a New York club DJ (he’d been a regular at the multi-level space Mars, in the Meatpacking District, where he’d play everything from hip-hop to dancehall reggae as well as house music and early techno) who’d scored a novelty hit: “Go,” which utilized Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks theme. Within two years of “Go” hitting the UK Top 10, the small, geeky multi-instrumentalist was signed to a major label (Elektra) and issuing critically-acclaimed titles (1993′s Move EP and 1995′s Everything Is Wrong) that bridged the rave underground and the pop mainstream. Dance purists blanched at first (and pop fans shrugged, at least in the States), but by 1999 — after a detour into loud rock with 1997′s divisive Animal Rights — Moby had perfected the amalgam with Play, a warm recasting of downtempo beats, sampled blues vocals, and inviting instrumentation that sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Since Play, Moby has settled into a comfortable niche as both a dance-music forefather (he frequently DJs at festivals around the world) and singer-songwriter whose songs are often sung by others. That’s particularly the case on the songful new Innocents, which pairs Moby not only with his first outside producer — Mark “Spike” Stent, who worked on Massive Attack’s early records as well as, in more recent years, Lady Gaga, Usher and No Doubt — but a half-dozen vocal guests of note: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Mark Lanegan, Damien Jurado, Cold Specks, Skylar Grey and Imyang Bassey, Moby’s longtime touring vocalist. eMusic’s Michaelangelo Matos spoke with Moby about the new album, the shrinking of New York studio space, and L.A.’s confusing topography.

Innocents is the first album you’ve made with an outside producer. Did that change how you wrote?

I’ve been working on music the same way for the past 30 years. I go into my studio and I play guitar or play keyboards or play around with different equipment and I just keep writing until I end up with something that I like. Sometimes I’ll read interviews with musicians who will talk about an erratically different way in which they approach making one record different from the next. I wish I had those interesting stories, because it’s really just me alone in my studio with a bunch of weird equipment, and it has been for quite a long time.

Because you were recording with someone else, did you treat your initial recordings as demos?

Yeah. I would go into my studio and spend about six months coming up with a bunch of ideas. When I first started meeting with Spike I had around 200 ideas, but clearly they weren’t 200 good ideas. We focused on probably 30-40 of those ideas and then we started reaching out to people who we thought might be interesting to have on the record. I got really lucky, because only a couple of people didn’t get back to us.

When did you begin to meet with Mark “Spike” Stent?

I think a year ago. To be honest with you, my grasp of time is kind of not that great. Like, the other day I was signing something and I had to put the date in there and I felt like the Absent-Minded Professor because I couldn’t remember what year it was.

[Stent] afforded me a degree of objectivity and perspective that I normally don’t have. Your perspective on what you’ve written really changes qualitatively the moment you share it with someone else. That for me was the main benefit of working with the producer is having this regained objectivity.

What led you to work together? Did you meet socially before this?

I’ve been signed to Mute Records for a while. Daniel Miller [the owner of] Mute Records, kept working with Spike and Alan Moulder, who did a lot of records. I really liked the records that Spike had worked on, some of the early stuff like the KLF and Massive Attack and Björk, which is ironic because a lot of people who want to work with him are interested in more of his pop productions [including Beyoncé and Madonna]. In turn, I think the reason he wanted to work with me is because I wasn’t interested in making a big pop record. I wanted to make something more lo-fi and weird.

You take a couple of guys in their 40s who spent most of their lives in studios, and the first thing they start talking about is their favorite weird old equipment. I have a slightly compulsive collection of tape delays — about eight of them. None of them work particularly well. You end up almost having an orchestra of tape delays. At one point the record was sounding very, very clean. So we ended up spending a couple of days putting the record through some sort of processing that would make these clean recordings sound more grimy and characterly.

The odd thing about…I would almost call it the new way of making records, because in the old days things were more compartmentalized. There was a writing period, followed by a recording period, followed by a tracking period: You’d have the drummer come in and spend a week doing drums, and then the bass, and then the vocals. Now you keep writing and recording and adding things to songs and playing around with stuff until things are done. The mixing process, rather than being a separate, added process, is almost a continuation of the creative process.

What changed the most from your initial idea of what the album might be and what it became?

When I first started thinking about this album I wanted it to be an underground, lo-fi dance record. Spike got me to change the focus to a more lo-fi melodic album. He said that when he listens to my records, what resonates with him is the more melodic music. He is the one who pushed it to become more like a singer-songwriter album. “Don’t Love Me” and “A Long Time” originally were very grimy, minimal dance tracks. He pushed me to give them more an emotional quality and more interesting chord structures. Those are the two holdovers from what the album was originally meant to be.

What lo-fi dance records inspired that initial idea?

Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English; a lot of early electronic music like Silver Apples and Suicide; Manu DiBango; a lot of Jamaican dance music and African dance music; and especially things that Wally Badarou played on. He’s one of my favorite musicians of all time. He’s the unsung hero of so many dance records. And a lot of New York records made in the early ’80s: Liquid Liquid, ESG, the Bush Tetras, Medium Medium, Konk. Just the records I grew up on. I’ve rediscovered them.

It’s funny — one of the people who helped me rediscover them was my old assistant Alex [Frankel]. He’s now in the band the Holy Ghost!, on DFA. When he was working with me, I would hang out with him and his friends, and they were all in their early 20s, and their favorite records were my favorite records when I was in my teens in the early ’80s. They kind of reintroduced me to the kind of music I loved. He was my assistant at the time [of 2008's Last Night]. I was playing the tracks I was working on to him. Every now and then he would get excited about something, and that was when I knew it was probably worth pursuing.

You moved to L.A. three years ago. Do you approach music differently there than you did in New York?

I think so. I have a sort of poetic-philosophical understanding of how living in L.A. has affected how I make music, and also a very practical, direct way. The direct way is college radio. Living in New York, I mainly listened to music that I owned. New York has good college radio, but terrible broadcast signal strength. Whereas in L.A., there’s KCRW and KXLU — really great college radio — and I think that’s affected how this album sounds.

On a more poetic level, L.A. is so vast, so byzantine, so weird and so un-cohesive, so in a way, when you move you have to make this huge effort to try and understand Los Angeles and make sense of it. Most cities are very cohesive: New York, Paris, Frankfurt, San Francisco, D.C., amazing, wonderful cities that are quite small and quite cohesive. Then you come to L.A. and it’s just [got] absolutely no cohesion. It almost makes people who live here search out a degree of smallness and comfort, because the city is so huge and confusing. I feel like this album has a smallness and comfort to it that might, oddly enough, [come from] living in L.A.

I thought I’d live in New York forever. Then I stopped drinking five years ago, and when I got sober I suddenly realized that New York is the single best place to be a drunk and unfortunately not the best place to be sober. The culture in New York revolves around going out and drinking and doing drugs and being degenerate, which is amazing when you can do that, but then you get sober and you feel kind of left out. Everyone in New York is out having the best time of their lives, and I’m at home watching 30 Rock DVDs. Also, I realized I wanted to be warm in the winter, and I wanted to be around nature.

New York, because it’s so affluent, most of the writers and musicians have been pushed out, so I wanted to live in a place that’s got more creative community. At some point I guess four or five years ago I realized that I actually had more friends [in L.A.] than I did in New York, especially when it comes to music. The real estate in New York is too expensive for anyone to have studios anymore. A couple of years ago, some friends of mine in L.A. were looking to record an orchestra in New York. There wasn’t a single recording studio in New York where they could record an orchestra. They ended up having to rent an empty space in a theater — and while they were recording, there was a huge Korean birthday party happening next door. They actually had to cancel [the session], because the Korean dance party music kept coming through the walls. Now, I actually don’t know too many professional musicians who don’t live in L.A.

You’ve been putting out records frequently these past few years. What kind of clock do you work on? Do you write music every day you can?

I don’t know how to do anything else, and it’s what I love to do. When I was 13 or 14, I spent a lot of time reading books, and some of my heroes from back then were Flannery O’Connor and Woody Allen and Picasso. I was always impressed by their work ethic, that idea of: When you’re inspired, go into the studio and work. When you’re not inspired, go into the studio and work. If you have success that means you should work more. If you have failure that means you should work more. No matter what’s going on an artist or writer or musician’s life, the only appropriate response is to keep working.

You’ve worked with vocalist Inyang Basey for a while now. How did you meet her?

When I was going on tour with the album Wait For Me I had a singer I was working with in the UK who couldn’t get a work visa to tour in the States, so at the last minute I had to hire a new singer. The very last person I auditioned was Inyang. The moment she started singing I knew she was the one. It turns out she’d never really sung professionally; her day job at the time was working at Carnegie Hall in their 20th Century classical music division. Her background when she was growing up was listening to the Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols. It’s funny that this skinny white kid was introducing her to older gospel and soul music.

Did Spike suggest any singers for the album?

Yeah. I basically started asking friends of mine whom they would recommend. My criteria were quite specific: I was looking for people who had really interesting emotional voices but who could also write really interesting lyrics. Spike’s one recommendation was Skylar Grey. She’s known more for being a pop person, but her background is more singer-songwriter based and a little more experimental. I asked Daniel Miller, and his one recommendation was Cold Specks. The way it works with all the collaborators is, I sent them about five instrumentals to see if anything resonated with them. Each of them picked one or two that they liked. Once the vocals have been recorded and sent to me I then rewrote the song around the vocals.

Did you resend a track to multiple vocalists before you got a yes?

Oh yeah. I had 10 instrumentals I really loved and really wanted vocals on. I’m kind of mercenary when it comes to trying to get the right vocals on the right track. It’s almost like a weird form of musical promiscuity, where I would sometimes send the same instrumental to three different people to try to see if it resonates with anyone.

Where was the third time the charm?

The song that Mark Lanegan co-wrote, ["The Lonely Night"] — that had been instrumental for a few years. I had never quite felt comfortable with what people had sent back. Then I gave it to him, and all of a sudden it felt like the vocals and the music made sense together. I made the final mix around his vocals. The music is mixed very quietly; the whole intention was to draw attention to his vocals.

Do you end up editing lyrics a lot?

Sometimes. The only person [I did that with] on this record was Skylar Grey. She’d written a line in the song: “Shades of grey.” This was right at the height of the Fifty Shades of Grey popularity. Skylar, because she lives up in the mountains, hadn’t heard about the book. I had to get her to make some suggestions for things that didn’t sound like they were referencing Fifty Shades of Grey. She thought it was funny.

I want to ask you about “Saints”: It’s obviously your instrumental style, but it seems looser and grander than usual — a big sweep with a lot of moving parts. Did it take a long time to put together?

It was supposed to be an instrumental that someone was going to write lyrics to, and I couldn’t find the right person. At some point Spike and I realized it was pretty good as an instrumental, so the focus was to try and finish it. I hired an arranger at the very end — I’d written orchestral parts, and I wanted to know what it would be like if someone came in and wrote orchestral parts. There’s a lot of big, bombastic brass parts. I think there are 300 different string players on it. It’s mixed in a way that the orchestral stuff doesn’t overwhelm the track. It almost makes me want to do a weird orchestral mix of it that strips out the drums.

Were you thinking of how some of these songs might be interpreted live?

No [laughs]. I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t going to go on tour with this record. I’ve had that frustration in the past of recording music, putting it on a record, and then realizing that it’s impossible to play it live in any interesting way.

What led to the decision not to tour?

A lot of it involves aging. As I’ve gotten older I’ve started to realize that life is short, and as much as I like standing on stage and playing music, I love being at home working on music. Of course, it drives my manager crazy, because in 2013 very few people buy records and the only way musicians make money is by touring. Basically, I’m focusing on the one aspect of the music business that’s not at all lucrative, while turning my back on the only lucrative side of the music business.

Well, you’ve always had a contrary streak.

Yeah, I guess so. I appreciate that we all need to eat and need to pay the rent. But if you have a finite amount of time, shouldn’t it be spent on things that you really love and find important? Even if that means making less money and making my business manager and manager very unhappy, I’d still rather be in my studio working on music.

A songwriting comeback that's simultaneously over and underdressed

“He’s so talented he can do anything!” That’s the gist of what’s typically said about Justin Timberlake, and for the most part it’s absolutely true. He’s an exceptionally nimble and unfettered singer/dancer, an extraordinary mimic with a drummer’s sense of timing. These gifts have helped him tremendously in comedy as well as drama, and despite the increasing maturity of his music and acting pursuits, he hasn’t let go of his ample boyish charm: This ex-Mouseketeer, ex-’N Sync-er still radiates mischievous yet all-American fun. And unlike so many stars who attain thoroughly mainstream saturation, he takes genuine risks that have actually increased his popularity: His last album, 2007′s FutureSex/LoveSounds, packs way more sonic, rhythmic and compositional quirks than most records that sell more than 10 million copies.

These are the stats that have empowered Timberlake to make a supremely — and, at times, foolishly — confident 20/20 Experience. The first of two full albums released six months apart is 70 minutes but only 10 songs long. Most are straightforward from a songwriting standpoint: “Tunnel Vision,” “That Girl” and several others see-saw back and forth between two chords for extended and sometimes relatively static periods with minimal contrasts between verses and choruses. But most are also complex in arrangement and texture, adding and subtracting rhythm and tempo as they smoothly groove along. Although some like “Don’t Hold the Wall” accelerate into dance tracks, the overriding vibe is more bedroom/strip club than dancefloor, as if Timberlake envisioned a Prince album almost entirely comprised of deep cut ballads. Aside from the singles “Suit & Tie” and “Mirrors,” which both draw from the opposing worlds of blatant chart pop and PBR&B, there’s little indication that anyone tried terribly hard to write hooks. Instead, this feels like a deservedly rich guy’s willfully anti-commercial fantasy of bohemian retro-futurist soul mother lode.

As such, Frank Ocean’s Channel ORANGE looms large over 20/20. But where Ocean employed complex chords and fearlessly soul-searched, this uncomplicatedly happy guy simply riffs on sex, status and his favorite records. He’s still in cahoots with Timbaland, the super-producer who practically invented these lurching, squelchy electro slow jams decades ago with Aaliyah and Ginuwine. Symphonic string swells and big band horn blasts may punctuate the otherwise slinky likes of “Pusher Love Girl,” but Timbaland doesn’t take Timberlake too far from Southern hip-hop: 20/20 is mixed to favor jeep-bumping bass that tends to blur the tony details that have been showcased far more successfully in the entertainer’s televised performances of this material. As such, it already feels more like a stepping-stone for multi-million-dollar tours, endorsement deals and general world domination than an entirely satisfying autonomous listening experience. Suit and tie aside, it’s simultaneously over and underdressed.

The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2 combines outtakes with newly-recorded material. That suggests that much of 2 of 2 is not a whole lot different from what came immediately before it, and in one way that’s true: Also created with Timbaland and his studio sidekick Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon, 2 of 2 is heavy on protracted, deluxe arrangements just like its predecessor. Featuring a slightly shorter average composition length, it is nevertheless still an album of jumbo cuts: 74-and-a-half minutes distributed among 12 tracks. Be sure to wait for “Pair of Wings,” the blissful acoustic ballad that’s hidden at the end of “Not a Bad Thing.”

But as its first single, the breezy, Off the Wall-flavored disco jam “Take Back the Night” suggests, 2 of 2 is faster and more dancefloor-friendly than much of the first 20/20, and therefore strikes with far greater instant impact: Opener “Gimme What I Don’t Know (I Want)” proves Timberlake remains the only superstar who can spit human beat-boxing ticks and tocks while keeping his tongue firmly in his cheek. He’s only a randy euphemism away from his SNL self-parodying self. A song about putting on a private show for one’s paramour, “Cabaret” boasts the naughtiest, most blasphemous line he’s ever dared sing: “I got you saying ‘Jesus’ so much it’s like we’re lying in a manger.”

The big difference is that these rigorous and rhythmic cuts are better suited the substantial song size: The longest one, “True Blood,” pumps from start to finish with a slew of breakdowns, buildups, contractions and expansions. Aside from the hard-rocking grinder “Only When I Walk Away,” there are few surprises. “Amnesia” has a sweet symphonic left-turn after the song’s main body fades — just like some of the first half of 20/20. Mostly, this is just Timberlake and Timbaland doing what they do best: Laying down the heavenly beats, ramping up the devilish charm and trouncing most mainstream contenders.

Faster and more dancefloor-friendly than much of its predecessor

When Justin Timberlake’s last album, The 20/20 Experience, arrived last March, it struck many as both over- and underwhelming. Lengthy, with few songs under six minutes, but shorter on hooks and forward propulsion than much of the singer’s catalog, this languid, elaborate album has, over the last few months, aged rather well. It’s a meticulous record, rich with atmosphere, one that reveals the subtleties of its sensuality with repeated plays.

Now comes The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2, a sequel that combines outtakes with newly-recorded material. That suggests that much of 2 of 2 is not a whole lot different from what came immediately before it, and in one way that’s true: Also created with Timbaland and his studio sidekick Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon, 2 of 2 is heavy on protracted, deluxe arrangements just like its predecessor. Featuring a slightly shorter average composition length, 2 of 2 is nevertheless still an album of jumbo cuts: The standard edition features 74-and-a-half minutes distributed among 12 tracks. Be sure to wait for “Pair of Wings,” the blissful acoustic ballad that’s hidden at the end of “Not a Bad Thing.”

But as its first single, the breezy, Off the Wall-flavored disco jam “Take Back the Night” suggests, 2 of 2 is faster and more dancefloor-friendly than much of the first 20/20, and therefore strikes with far greater instant impact: Opener “Gimme What I Don’t Know (I Want)” proves Timberlake remains the only superstar who can spit human beat-boxing ticks and tocks while keeping his tongue firmly in his cheek. He’s only a randy euphemism away from his SNL self-parodying self. A song about putting on a private show for one’s paramour, “Cabaret” boasts the naughtiest, most blasphemous line he’s ever dared sing: “I got you saying ‘Jesus’ so much it’s like we’re lying in a manger.”

The big difference is that these rigorous and rhythmic cuts are better suited the substantial song size: The longest one, “True Blood,” pumps from start to finish with a slew of breakdowns, buildups, contractions and expansions. Aside from the hard-rocking grinder “Only When I Walk Away,” there are few surprises. “Amnesia” has a sweet symphonic left-turn after the song’s main body fades — just like some of the original 20/20. Mostly, this is just Timberlake and Timbaland doing what they do best: Laying down the heavenly beats, ramping up the devilish charm, and trouncing most mainstream contenders.

Theatrical, but keeping the smoke and mirrors under tight control

Raised in Copenhagen but based in Berlin, Agnes Obel is well placed to capture an old-world, Brothers Grimm mystery in her music. The follow-up to 2010′s European hit Philharmonics, Aventine demands that the listener lean in close, closer, closer, to hear what it has to say before suddenly snapping shut over their head. Yet while Obel’s compositions are no stranger to the theatrical, their pizzicato strings and petticoat-rustling pianos generating an ominous crackle of tension, the singer-songwriter is careful to keep her smoke and mirrors under tight control in case they sink into melodrama.

Satie-like piano sketches “Fivefold,” “Tokka” and “Chord Left” set the tone and the pace, their antique stateliness slowly cracking to reveal something more disturbing, more disordered. At times, Obel sounds like a softer Nina Nastasia — especially on the high-tension strings of “Run Cried the Crawling” — but there are also smudges and traces of Cat Power and on the looming “Dorian,” Bat for Lashes. Despite these echoes, however, Obel carefully defines her own space, picking her way through the wintery fairytale woods of “Pass Them By” or “The Curse” to tell her own story, ending unknown.

First things first: as you’ve probably noticed, we invited Moby to take over eMusic this week. He selected the interviews, he talked to us about his new record, and he also picked his 10 favorite records from the eMusic catalog. You can read the full batch of content here. Of his new record, Innocents, Ian Gittins says:

Innocents, his 11th studio album, may be the one to reverse that trend. Recorded entirely in his home studio, it shows the reflective electro-auteur is back on sublimely sure-footed form, balancing the euphoric glow of headphones techno at its most acute with the melancholic ache that has undercut all of his finest work. Where Play famously utilized samples of long-lost Delta blues and gospel alumni and Alan Lomax’s field recordings, this time Moby turns to contemporary leftfield figures for his nap hand of evocative other voices.

HAIM, Days Are Gone: If you have not heard anything from this record yet, I need to first ask: how have you not heard anything from this record yet? Why haven’t you heard anything from this record yet? Three sisters from LA straight-up made one of the best pop records of the year. This one is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Barry Walters thinks so, too. He says:

Nearly every cut exudes the confidence of a single: There have already been four of them, and that doesn’t even count “If I Could Change Your Mind,” a soft-rock plea punctuated by handclaps and hi-hat from the disco gods. And yet there’s plenty of weirdness too: “My Song 5″ features not just Tom Waits-goes-dubstep moves and a righteous double-tracked fuzz bass solo, but also super-distorted virtual trombones that essentially fart along with the vocal. Wilson Philips never thought of that.

Lorde, Pure Heroine: Speaking of the best pop records of the year, New Zealand teenager Lorde has made another one of them. Good God, do I love this record. Lithe dance beats, smart, acerbic lyrics and gently bobbing melodies make for a basically perfect final package. Case in point: lead single “Royals” sounds like it’s an ode to empty materialism, until you listen closely to the lyrics and realize it’s actually a takedown of empty materialism. This one is also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Jayson Greene says:

The songs on Pure Heroine are funny and legible and shrewd, sketching out a sharp framework and shading it in expertly. If New Zealand teenager Ella Yelich-O’Connor weren’t a solo performer, she’d make a successful behind-the-scenes hit writer. Her songwriting is more subdued and low-key than the radio chart pop of the moment — “Royals” is mostly a fingersnap of percussion, and “Ribs” is a rainy-windshield blur of synth pads and muted drums — but it’s blessed with this same supernatural acuity. These songs are smarter than any 17-year-old I’ve ever known, and smarter than a lot of 40-year-olds I know now.

Oneohtrix Point Never, R Plus Seven: Honestly this is just a non-stop week of RECOMMENDED albums. I’ve loved the strange, moody music Daniel Lopatin has made as Oneohtrix Point Never. R Plus Seven is another fascinating chapter in the ongoing riddle that is his career. It’s a good ‘un. Michaelangelo Matos says:

R Plus Seven is ambitiously detailed, each tendril of sound — whatever its source, human voice or digital static — seemingly painted onto the aural canvas with a fine brush. Maybe he was inspired by his December 2012 participation, with visual artist Nate Boyce, in a multimedia evening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art; there’s a fine-art quality to R Plus Seven‘s gradations. But there’s a public-spiritedness that it shares, along with a few compositional qualities, with the ’70s downtown New York minimalism in whose steps it proudly follows.

Those Darlins, Blur the Line: Alt-country cutups return with a record that is cleaner and more direct than previous efforts. The production is crisper, and the songs are less ragged and sloppy, making for pristine country-rock that goes down smooth.

Basia Bulat, Tall Tall Shadow: OK, look, I’m kind of a mark for Basia Bulat. Chalk it up to the fact that I was a huge 10,000 Maniacs fan when I was in my 20s, maybe? However you slice it: her third record is her strongest to date, and on its final triptych of songs she roams outside the folk-based instrumentation she’s become known for to areas that are darker and weirder and more unsettling. This one is RECOMMENDED Peter Blackstock says:

Bulat’s versatility with guitar, piano, autoharp and charango (a lute-like Andean instrument) allows her to compose on a broad canvas, allowing the tone of her material to range from haunting balladry reminiscent of classic English folk to moody explorations to the instantly engaging urgency of “It Can’t Be You” and the title track. Binding it all together is Bulat’s spectacular and singular voice: She draws you in as if you’re privy to an intimate conversation, then suddenly soars high with sweetness and grace, seeking a revelation somewhere in the astral plane.

Deltron 3030, Event II: Those of you out there wondering when David Cross, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Chang and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were going to be on a rap record: your day has come. Barry Walters says:

That kind of talent roster would be utterly top-heavy in lesser hands, but Nakamura’s finely finessed aesthetic specializes in off-the-wall excess: It’s everywhere on this retro-futurist opus. It’s unclear if the jazzy cop-show grooves that appear throughout out are sampled or freshly orchestrated; they sound like the former, but feel like the latter. All three brothers, despite the long hiatus, are right on time — even if it’s more than a little warped.

The Field, Cupid’s Head: The Field’s Axel Willner makes house music for the ears, not the body. It’s always rich and fascinating. Bill Brewster says:

Cupid’s Head continues Willner’s exploration of the fertile common ground between shoegaze and the wide-open spaces of Manuel Göttsching, or the post-acid house Wild Pitch mixes from Chicago’s DJ Pierre. Pierre, in a way, provides Willner’s template, with his layers of subtle keyboard sounds, treated vocals and percussion, the overall effect being an ever-ascending aural illusion of spiralling sounds. Willner’s samples, however, are microcosmic, sometimes less than a bar in length, and they stack up to provoke a sense of dizzying abandon and release.

Yuck, Glow & Behold: Poor Yuck, man. Just when that ship was leaving the dock, their lead vocalist leapt out and scurried into the arms of Neil Hagerty to make a solo album full of songs twice as long as they needed to be. Yuck soldiered on, though, god bless ‘em, and their second record is less Dino Jr and more MBV, full of big washes of sound tempered by guitarist Max Bloom’s gentle, cumulonimbus vocals.

“>Leverage Models, Leverage Models: Breezy, breathy electro-indie record from Shannon Fields, aka Leverage Models. Kind of a Lightning Seeds vibe in spots, kind of early Erasure vibe in spots. Fields’ parents were Pentecostal preachers, apparently, and there’s a definite sense of otherworldly euphoria to these songs. Sharon Van Etten sings on one of them. FYI.

The Four Mints, Gently Down Your Stream: Excellent sweet soul reissue from overlooked ’60s R&B group (via the always-excellent Numero Group), the songs on this record blend the gorgeous harmonies of doo-wop with the cotton-glove delivery of soul music. Also the title track has one of the best double-entendres I’ve ever heard in a pop song, and they get away with it by singing it like sweet nothings whispered in a lovers’ ear. This sucker is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Blind Boys of Alabama, I’ll Find a Way: Latest from legendary gospel group is jam-packed with guest spots, including Justin Vernon, tUnE-yArDs, My Brightest Diamond, Sam Amidon and more. And the extra bonus is that Blind Boys of Alabama on their own are awesome, so there’s that. This is grizzled, southern fried rock & roll, smoky and irresistible.

Dr. Dog, B-Room: More everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink rock songs from Philly group moseys around the corners of classic soul, ’60s rock, low-grade psychedelia and other dusty crate-digging styles. This one is as shaggy as previous outings, its songs having a loose, band-jamming-in-a-room feel.

Blitzen Trapper, VII: Portland roots-rockers roots-rock on back with another batch of batter-dipped choogle-core. Lots of Skynyrdy licks and Dylany vocals, as warm and worn as an old flannel shirt or as weathered as an old straw hat. That’s enough imagery right? No? As sturdy and slow-burning as the coals in a corncob pipe.

Elf Power, Sunlight on the Moon: Latest from long-running Elephant Sixers; where other bands in this collective took identifiable forbears (The Beatles, Beach Boys, etc) and turned them inside out, the Elves (as I call them in this writeup) forged their own weird path, dipping lo-fi indie rock in an acid bath, sounding at times like an ad-hoc Roxy Music.

The Fuzz, Fuzz: Ty Segall is at it again! Except, holy cow, this time it’s full-on Sabbath-sounding! I was not expecting this! The last time I saw Ty he covered “Paranoid,” but this is next level — a whole batch of sun-fried stoner jams, the kind of thing that would give Blue Cheer a run for their money or would sidle up nicely next to Masters of Reality. RECOMMENDED

Rapsody, The Idea of Beautiful: Rapsody was my favorite rapper in the group Kooley High, with a lightning-crack flow, gallons of attitude and a knack for incisive social commentary that didn’t feel like preaching. This is her full-length debut, and it’s a suitable showcase for her talent, situating her wry, young-Lauryn Hill flow amid smoky productions. RECOMMENDED

Melt-Banana, Fetch: Woo-hoo! More bonkers greatness from Japanese noiseniks is as scabrous and woozy as you might expect. Stabbing shards of guitars, panic-attack drums and desperate, yelping vocals make this one a spectacular blender of noise. Everythig is loud and moving at light speed, so fast it’s impossible to get your brain around it. This one is RECOMMENDED

Quasi, Mole City: In 1998, Quasi — Sam Coombes and Janet Weiss — made a record called Featuring “Birds”, and it was awesome. This is their new one. Douglas Wolk says:

Mole City is spilling over with crisp, witty rock songs, punctuated by bonus noise doodles. Weiss is a piledriving drummer most of the time (she tones it down when the songs call for it, but it’s really fun when she cuts loose), and Coomes favors super-fuzzed-out instrumental sounds and massive riffs to set off his weedy smart-alec voice. And they’re as locked into each other’s sense of rhythm as any two musicians can be.

Nelly, M.O: Is it getting hot in here, or is there a new Nelly record out today? Man, remember how Nelly was one of the biggest superstars on the planet, and then he released an individually packaged double-album Sweat and Suit, and then, mysteriously, he wasn’t anymore? Well, he’s back. The lead single from this kind of sounds like “The Whisper Song,” which doesn’t bode well for anyone. The rest is comprised of skittery beats topped with Nelly’s speak-sing delivery and a few naked bids for “Hot in Herrre 2: Electric Hot-aloo.”

Tired Pony, The Ghost of the Mountain: This band has a weird resume. It’s Peter Buck (naturally), the singer from Snow Patrol, Jacknife Lee (who produced recent R.E.M. and U2 records but will always and forever be known to me as the guitarist from Compulsion, the drummer from Belle & Sebastian and a bunch of other folks make a bunch of songs that sound more or less like what you’d guess a bunch of songs by those people would sound like.

Spilling over with crisp, witty rock songs, punctuated by bonus noise doodles

Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have now been recording as Quasi for 20 years and nine albums, outlasting nearly all of their contemporaries, which is astonishing for a band whose main lyrical themes are indignation and self-laceration. They’re still enormously creatively fertile as a duo (a format they’ve returned to after a few years with bassist Joanna Bolme) — Mole City is spilling over with crisp, witty rock songs, punctuated by bonus noise doodles. Weiss is a pile-driving drummer most of the time (she tones it down when the songs call for it, but it’s really fun when she cuts loose), and Coomes favors super-fuzzed-out instrumental sounds and massive riffs to set off his weedy smart-alec voice. And they’re as locked into each other’s sense of rhythm as any two musicians can be: Either “Blasted” deliberately includes an incredibly weird metrical shift or both of them impulsively threw in an extra half-beat at the same moment.

Quasi’s performance aesthetic is punk rock all the way, but one weird and wonderful thing about them is that their songwriting is totally grounded in the pre-punk era (the ending of “See You on Mars” is boater-and-cane music-hall, and the singalong tune of “Bedbug Town” could have appeared on an old Kinks record). Mole City reaches back to the early glam and metal era for some of its sounds — there’s a lot of T. Rex and Ziggy Stardust, and a little bit of Black Sabbath, in its grooves. As usual, though, Coomes and Weiss’s harshest critiques are reserved for their own impulses. One of the album’s centerpieces is an unhinged Big Star pastiche called “Nostalgia Kills,” and the climactic “New Western Way” skewers the culture of a generation raised on “Nestlé Quik mother’s milk/ Mickey Mouse plastic spoon.”

Creating another facet of their constantly evolving identity

If 2012′s Divine Providence was Deer Tick’s last-call bar-romp, Negativity is the Rhode Island quintet’s bleak morning-after. Much more introspective and subdued, Negativity largely ditches the group’s trademark drunken swagger for emotional and musical depth.

Singer John McCauley wrote Negativity in the course of a year in which he suffered a broken engagement and his father’s incarceration for tax fraud, all while alternating between smoking cocaine and trying to clean up. As such, the lyrical content of Negativity is appropriately abject: The quasi-ballad “Mr. Sticks” addresses McCauley’s dad and “The Wall,” “Just Friends” and single “The Dream’s in the Ditch” all depict various broken relationships.

The album is also the most musical in Deer Tick’s nine-year career, as the band employs keys and more melodic guitar lines for a fuller sound. Negativity is also punctuated by horns courtesy of Austin, Texass’ 11-piece Grupo Fantasmo on songs like “Trash” and “The Rock.” The emphasis on technicality and sobriety, unfortunately, take away some of what made Deer Tick special to begin with. They deserve credit for creating another facet of their constantly evolving identity; it’s just a bummer that negativity isn’t as much fun.

Creating another facet of their constantly evolving identity

If 2012′s Divine Providence was Deer Tick’s last-call bar-romp, Negativity is the Rhode Island quintet’s bleak morning-after. Much more introspective and subdued, Negativity largely ditches the group’s trademark drunken swagger for emotional and musical depth.

Singer John McCauley wrote Negativity in the course of a year in which he suffered a broken engagement and his father’s incarceration for tax fraud, all while alternating between smoking cocaine and trying to clean up. As such, the lyrical content of Negativity is appropriately abject: The quasi-ballad “Mr. Sticks” addresses McCauley’s dad and “The Wall,” “Just Friends” and single “The Dream’s in the Ditch” all depict various broken relationships.

The album is also the most musical in Deer Tick’s nine-year career, as the band employs keys and more melodic guitar lines for a fuller sound. Negativity is also punctuated by horns courtesy of Austin, Texass’ 11-piece Grupo Fantasmo on songs like “Trash” and “The Rock.” The emphasis on technicality and sobriety, unfortunately, take away some of what made Deer Tick special to begin with. They deserve credit for creating another facet of their constantly evolving identity; it’s just a bummer that negativity isn’t as much fun.

Rock's instrumentation, chopped so finely it stutters like R&B

The Los Angeles sister band HAIM — their last name, one that rhymes with “time” — employ rock’s instrumentation, but chop it up so finely it stutters like R&B. They’re not the first to do this, of course, but HAIM’s blend, a mix of bright, brittle percussiveness and soft sisterly harmonies, feels unique, a sound that’s both nervous and resolute. It feels like youth, that knowledge that everything’s already been done before, but that you’ve nevertheless got to make your own mark. Providing most of the instrumentation as well as the singing, Este, Danielle and Alana Haim do exactly that.

There are other precedents to HAIM — Tango in the Night-era Fleetwood Mac in the precision of the production and the assuredness of the hooks; the sunniness of the Mamas and the Papas or Wilson Phillips. But because the songwriting is as strong as the sisters’ delivery is nonchalant, there’s an immediate and assured identity here that’s striking, and it transcends its many influences.

Nearly every cut exudes the confidence of a single: There have already been four of them, and that doesn’t even count “If I Could Change Your Mind,” a soft-rock plea punctuated by handclaps and hi-hat from the disco gods. And yet there’s plenty of weirdness too: “My Song 5″ features not just Tom Waits-goes-dubstep moves and a righteous double-tracked fuzz bass solo, but also super-distorted virtual trombones that essentially fart along with the vocal. Wilson Philips never thought of that.

Ambitiously detailed tendrils of sound

Daniel Lopatin’s work as Oneohtrix Point Never has been evolving in recent years to a fine point. R Plus Seven, his ninth Oneohtrix album overall, is ambitiously detailed, each tendril of sound — whatever its source, human voice or digital static — seemingly painted onto the aural canvas with a fine brush. Maybe he was inspired by his December 2012 participation, with visual artist Nate Boyce, in a multimedia evening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art; there’s a fine-art quality to R Plus Seven‘s gradations. But there’s a public-spiritedness that it shares, along with a few compositional qualities, with the ’70s downtown New York minimalism in whose steps it proudly follows.

On the 94-second “He She,” Lopatin cuts and arranges a litany of vocal sounds into a tune that evokes both Todd Edwards (who cut up the vocals on Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and “Face to Face”) and Meredith Monk. Sometimes it can get abstruse — “Inside World” stops and starts so much it can grow wearying, despite some lovely embellishments — but more often the trickery opens the music up wide rather than making it hermetic. “Chrome Country,” the closer, is an uplifting organ and choir chamber number. It’s a lift, and so is the album.

When Moby requested we interview Cold Specks as part of his takeover of eMusic, we were all too happy to oblige. The debut from pseudonymous songwriter Al Spx topped our list of eMusic’s Best Albums of 2012, and her live show had grown more riveting and more assured each time we saw her. Her performance on Moby’s record Innocents contains all of the things that made her first album so stunning — enigmatic lyrics, deeply-felt vocals and a free-floating but undeniable sense of spirituality. eMusic’s editor-in-chief J. Edward Keyes caught up with Spx by phone to discuss her new record, her collaboration with Moby and her paralyzing perfectionism.

I’m interviewing you at Moby’s request, because he’s taking over our site for a week, but it’s kind of convenient — your album was our No. 1 record of last year.

I heard about that!

So I thought this would be a good time to see what you’ve been up to since then. Where are you right now?

I’m in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I’m in a studio recording some songs for the next record.

How long have you been working on that?

Well. I don’t know. It’s kind of — [pauses]. Some of the songs have existed for a while, some are brand new. We didn’t start tracking until maybe a month ago.

So there were still some songs from your original batch that didn’t make it on to I Predict a Graceful Expulsion?

There’s just one. It’s existed in many forms, and I finally forced the son of a bitch to give in recently. I won’t tell you which one. It’ll ruin the surprise.

I was going to ask if it was the one you were playing on tour.

Well, actually, OK — I got that wrong. There’s two that have existed in a few different forms. The one that you’re speaking of — where did you see me play?

I saw you at Glasslands, then at Mercury Lounge, then at Piano’s.

OK. So you probably heard a bunch of the new ones. There’s a song… [stops suddenly] I don’t want to say!

You don’t have to!

Oh, I’ll just say it, whatever. There’s a song called “All Flesh is Grass” and a song called “Let Loose the Dogs.” “All Flesh is Grass” is probably written around the same time as “Blank Maps,” but it didn’t make the first record because I hadn’t figured out the arrangement for it, and it’s taken a couple of years to get right. The other one was written when I first started touring.

You talk about these songs existing in a few different forms — how do you know when to say “stop”?

I know it’s done because when I listen to it, I become filled with delight and satisfaction, and I know that I can’t make it any better. My producer, Jim, and the assistant here are probably realizing that I’m incredibly anal when it comes to the studio, but these songs exist forever, so I just want to get them right. I’m kind of a perfectionist. I want and I need for everything to be absolutely as perfect as I can make it.

What was the moment you started becoming aware that the first record was really resonating with people?

I guess when I started to tour the record, I would notice the crowds start to get bigger. We’d be playing tiny shows in small towns in the middle of nowhere — like, say, Denton, Texas — and there would be loads of people who knew and loved the songs. I guess that’s when I started to realize that I was doing something right.

One of the things that really struck me about the record was the way you took Bible verses and either recontextualize them or manipulate them in certain ways. How conscious a choice was that?

Not very conscious. The record is a representation of loss in many forms — mostly just loss of several relationships. I studied English and noticed Bible verses are common in literature. It’s the best piece of fiction in the world as far as I’m concerned. There are some really beautiful lines in it, and some lines really just stuck out to me. I don’t really like to go into detail about what the songs are about. I’m a very private person and my songs are very vague and I really do love it when people interpret it and take it in different ways. I think it’s incredibly fascinating.

A lot of the story around the early record was about the falling out between you and your parents. From what I’ve read, it sounds like things are better now?

It’s all good in the hood. It was kind of blown out of proportion in the early days. It was mostly just growing pains, really. My parents wanted the best for me and they didn’t necessarily believe that music was the best for me at first, but they’ve come around. It’s all love.

Does that mean you’ll start using your real name?

[Laughs.] No, I’m a very private person. I write music and I enjoy doing it, but because I do it, I think it’s completely unnatural to perform day in and day out and give yourself to people — a collection of strangers — every night. I’d much rather have a stage name and remove myself from it all.

So you take on this persona of Al Spx to maintain a sense of self.

That’s exactly what it is. Al Spx is a character, and she exists because I created a project called Cold Specks, and people kept asking me who Cold Specks was. And I thought I’d given enough at first, but evidently I hadn’t [laughs]. So I came up with a stage name, and that’s all I’m willing to give. I just got so uncomfortable attaching my real name and myself to songs that are incredibly personal and have the tendency to be morbid. It’s not a reflection of me, and I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the songs completely defining me as a human being, because it’s just one side of me. So I have a stage name.

I’d imagine it also allows you a degree of sanity because you can step out of that character when you’re not performing.

Exactly. When I’m not touring, I go back to the girl I am and remember who I am as a human being. It can be incredibly grueling at times. Al Spx is a tough bitch and she can deal with that, but when I’m at home, I want to just be me.

One of my favorite lines is on “Blank Maps,” where you sing “I am a goddamn believer.” What are some things you believe in?

I’m not sure. I’m still figuring it out. That particular song is — [pauses]. That particular song is about a boy, and I think I was just trying to let him know some things.

Have any of the people these songs are about heard them?

Probably. [Laughs] I’m not sure. I don’t know. I’d rather not say.

Let’s talk about the new record. Thematically, how do the songs relate to the songs on the first record?

It’s different. They’re louder. There aren’t any acoustic guitars — I’ve been joking that I’ve gone all “Judas” on this record [laughs].

Is this for real, or are you doing that thing you like to do to interviewers where you pull my leg and then I report it?

[Laughs.] I’m not! I’m not. I’ve stopped doing that. It’s more playful this record. The first record was a delicate record, and it was a moment in time and a reflection of a fragile girl. For this record, I’ve grown a lot as a human being. The songs on the first record were written when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, and I’ve grown a lot since then. I think I also got a little tired of being depicted as an “emotional songwriter.” That sort of seeped into my songwriting. So this one’s just playful.

So more major-key songs?

I actually can’t answer that for you, but only because I don’t know anything about music. I play in two tunings, and they’re both, I guess, minor tunings — it’s always gonna be minor with Cold Specks — but I don’t actually know anything about music. I play guitar and write all the songs and I sit down with the boys and tell them what I want. Like I said, I’m incredibly anal in the studio.

I’m curious as to how you think other members of your band would describe working with you.

Chris Cundy, the woodwind player, has a phrase — he says I’m “predictably unpredictable.” And that’s accurate. I’m the most disgustingly indecisive person. I think I know what I want, but I really don’t.

Let’s talk a little bit about the collaboration with Moby — how did that come about?

We’re on the same label, Mute, and I think he was looking for singers and Daniel Miller from Mute mentioned me, so he looked up all my stuff and really liked it, and we just started working together.

Was the song already finished by the time it got to you?

“A Case for Shame,” he sent an instrumental. There’s a studio in London that I work in occasionally and I recorded some vocals and sent them back to him. It was a very creative and collaborative setup. The other song we actually recorded in his home studio. I had a day off on my last North American tour, so we stopped in L.A. and I went over to his house and recorded the second song. Very quickly, actually. He already had the instrumental and I had it for weeks but couldn’t come up with anything. The night before [we were recording] I scribbled some notes on my hotel notepad and went in and we did it in about an hour.

How is his process different from yours?

He’s not an anal piece of shit like I am.

That seems like you’re being pretty hard on yourself!

I like to think I’m funny with my harshness! [Laughs.] He goes with the flow, Moby. He doesn’t overanalyze. It’s something I learned from working with him. I can spend a lot of time just picking at things and just doesn’t do that. He’s a very free and open and creative man and he’s not at all disgustingly over analytical. It’s a really refreshing thing.

I’m sure some of that comes with experience, though.

Yeah, I’m only making my second record now. He’s had a lot of time to grow as an artist, so he knows what he wants and he gets there quickly.

I know you have a lot of influences outside of music. I was curious to know what you’re reading now.

There’s a book by Milan Kundera called Immortality that I just picked up the other day.

What kinds of books do you tend to be attracted to?

I like really descriptive stuff, and I like really short and sweet stuff as well. I like ‘em all.

Are you living in Canada when you’re not on the road?

I don’t live anywhere. I just finished touring. I’ll probably be moving back to London soon. I like it because it’s a very big city — I think it’s the best city in the world. It’s huge — there are cities within the city. So many people, so many things to do. It’s just a wonderful city.

Since Moby asked us to interview you as one of his favorite artists, I was wondering who you’ve been listening to lately and who you admire.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Scott Walker. Michael Gira from Swans. There’s this band from the UK called Savages that I really like.

I could almost hear a collaboration between you and Scott Walker.

Oh God, I would love that. The guy who did our latest music video did the video for that song “Epizootics!” from the last Scott Walker record. That’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to Scott Walker.

Moby first broke through in 1991 as a New York club DJ (he’d been a regular at the multi-level space Mars, in the Meatpacking District, where he’d play everything from hip-hop to dancehall reggae as well as house music and early techno) who’d scored a novelty hit: “Go,” which utilized Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks theme. Within two years of “Go” hitting the UK Top 10, the small, geeky multi-instrumentalist was signed to a major label (Elektra) and issuing critically-acclaimed titles (1993′s Move EP and 1995′s Everything Is Wrong) that bridged the rave underground and the pop mainstream. Dance purists blanched at first (and pop fans shrugged, at least in the States), but by 1999 — after a detour into loud rock with 1997′s divisive Animal Rights — Moby had perfected the amalgam with Play, a warm recasting of downtempo beats, sampled blues vocals, and inviting instrumentation that sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Since Play, Moby has settled into a comfortable niche as both a dance-music forefather (he frequently DJs at festivals around the world) and singer-songwriter whose songs are often sung by others. That’s particularly the case on the songful new Innocents, which pairs Moby not only with his first outside producer — Mark “Spike” Stent, who worked on Massive Attack’s early records as well as, in more recent years, Lady Gaga, Usher and No Doubt — but a half-dozen vocal guests of note: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Mark Lanegan, Damien Jurado, Cold Specks, Skylar Grey and Imyang Bassey, Moby’s longtime touring vocalist. eMusic’s Michaelangelo Matos spoke with Moby about the new album, the shrinking of New York studio space, and L.A.’s confusing topography.

Innocents is the first album you’ve made with an outside producer. Did that change how you wrote?

I’ve been working on music the same way for the past 30 years. I go into my studio and I play guitar or play keyboards or play around with different equipment and I just keep writing until I end up with something that I like. Sometimes I’ll read interviews with musicians who will talk about an erratically different way in which they approach making one record different from the next. I wish I had those interesting stories, because it’s really just me alone in my studio with a bunch of weird equipment, and it has been for quite a long time.

Because you were recording with someone else, did you treat your initial recordings as demos?

Yeah. I would go into my studio and spend about six months coming up with a bunch of ideas. When I first started meeting with Spike I had around 200 ideas, but clearly they weren’t 200 good ideas. We focused on probably 30-40 of those ideas and then we started reaching out to people who we thought might be interesting to have on the record. I got really lucky, because only a couple of people didn’t get back to us.

When did you begin to meet with Mark “Spike” Stent?

I think a year ago. To be honest with you, my grasp of time is kind of not that great. Like, the other day I was signing something and I had to put the date in there and I felt like the Absent-Minded Professor because I couldn’t remember what year it was.

[Stent] afforded me a degree of objectivity and perspective that I normally don’t have. Your perspective on what you’ve written really changes qualitatively the moment you share it with someone else. That for me was the main benefit of working with the producer is having this regained objectivity.

What led you to work together? Did you meet socially before this?

I’ve been signed to Mute Records for a while. Daniel Miller [the owner of] Mute Records, kept working with Spike and Alan Moulder, who did a lot of records. I really liked the records that Spike had worked on, some of the early stuff like the KLF and Massive Attack and Björk, which is ironic because a lot of people who want to work with him are interested in more of his pop productions [including Beyoncé and Madonna]. In turn, I think the reason he wanted to work with me is because I wasn’t interested in making a big pop record. I wanted to make something more lo-fi and weird.

You take a couple of guys in their 40s who spent most of their lives in studios, and the first thing they start talking about is their favorite weird old equipment. I have a slightly compulsive collection of tape delays — about eight of them. None of them work particularly well. You end up almost having an orchestra of tape delays. At one point the record was sounding very, very clean. So we ended up spending a couple of days putting the record through some sort of processing that would make these clean recordings sound more grimy and characterly.

The odd thing about…I would almost call it the new way of making records, because in the old days things were more compartmentalized. There was a writing period, followed by a recording period, followed by a tracking period: You’d have the drummer come in and spend a week doing drums, and then the bass, and then the vocals. Now you keep writing and recording and adding things to songs and playing around with stuff until things are done. The mixing process, rather than being a separate, added process, is almost a continuation of the creative process.

What changed the most from your initial idea of what the album might be and what it became?

When I first started thinking about this album I wanted it to be an underground, lo-fi dance record. Spike got me to change the focus to a more lo-fi melodic album. He said that when he listens to my records, what resonates with him is the more melodic music. He is the one who pushed it to become more like a singer-songwriter album. “Don’t Love Me” and “A Long Time” originally were very grimy, minimal dance tracks. He pushed me to give them more an emotional quality and more interesting chord structures. Those are the two holdovers from what the album was originally meant to be.

What lo-fi dance records inspired that initial idea?

Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English; a lot of early electronic music like Silver Apples and Suicide; Manu DiBango; a lot of Jamaican dance music and African dance music; and especially things that Wally Badarou played on. He’s one of my favorite musicians of all time. He’s the unsung hero of so many dance records. And a lot of New York records made in the early ’80s: Liquid Liquid, ESG, the Bush Tetras, Medium Medium, Konk. Just the records I grew up on. I’ve rediscovered them.

It’s funny — one of the people who helped me rediscover them was my old assistant Alex [Frankel]. He’s now in the band the Holy Ghost!, on DFA. When he was working with me, I would hang out with him and his friends, and they were all in their early 20s, and their favorite records were my favorite records when I was in my teens in the early ’80s. They kind of reintroduced me to the kind of music I loved. He was my assistant at the time [of 2008's Last Night]. I was playing the tracks I was working on to him. Every now and then he would get excited about something, and that was when I knew it was probably worth pursuing.

You moved to L.A. three years ago. Do you approach music differently there than you did in New York?

I think so. I have a sort of poetic-philosophical understanding of how living in L.A. has affected how I make music, and also a very practical, direct way. The direct way is college radio. Living in New York, I mainly listened to music that I owned. New York has good college radio, but terrible broadcast signal strength. Whereas in L.A., there’s KCRW and KXLU — really great college radio — and I think that’s affected how this album sounds.

On a more poetic level, L.A. is so vast, so byzantine, so weird and so un-cohesive, so in a way, when you move you have to make this huge effort to try and understand Los Angeles and make sense of it. Most cities are very cohesive: New York, Paris, Frankfurt, San Francisco, D.C., amazing, wonderful cities that are quite small and quite cohesive. Then you come to L.A. and it’s just [got] absolutely no cohesion. It almost makes people who live here search out a degree of smallness and comfort, because the city is so huge and confusing. I feel like this album has a smallness and comfort to it that might, oddly enough, [come from] living in L.A.

I thought I’d live in New York forever. Then I stopped drinking five years ago, and when I got sober I suddenly realized that New York is the single best place to be a drunk and unfortunately not the best place to be sober. The culture in New York revolves around going out and drinking and doing drugs and being degenerate, which is amazing when you can do that, but then you get sober and you feel kind of left out. Everyone in New York is out having the best time of their lives, and I’m at home watching 30 Rock DVDs. Also, I realized I wanted to be warm in the winter, and I wanted to be around nature.

New York, because it’s so affluent, most of the writers and musicians have been pushed out, so I wanted to live in a place that’s got more creative community. At some point I guess four or five years ago I realized that I actually had more friends [in L.A.] than I did in New York, especially when it comes to music. The real estate in New York is too expensive for anyone to have studios anymore. A couple of years ago, some friends of mine in L.A. were looking to record an orchestra in New York. There wasn’t a single recording studio in New York where they could record an orchestra. They ended up having to rent an empty space in a theater — and while they were recording, there was a huge Korean birthday party happening next door. They actually had to cancel [the session], because the Korean dance party music kept coming through the walls. Now, I actually don’t know too many professional musicians who don’t live in L.A.

You’ve been putting out records frequently these past few years. What kind of clock do you work on? Do you write music every day you can?

I don’t know how to do anything else, and it’s what I love to do. When I was 13 or 14, I spent a lot of time reading books, and some of my heroes from back then were Flannery O’Connor and Woody Allen and Picasso. I was always impressed by their work ethic, that idea of: When you’re inspired, go into the studio and work. When you’re not inspired, go into the studio and work. If you have success that means you should work more. If you have failure that means you should work more. No matter what’s going on an artist or writer or musician’s life, the only appropriate response is to keep working.

You’ve worked with vocalist Inyang Basey for a while now. How did you meet her?

When I was going on tour with the album Wait For Me I had a singer I was working with in the UK who couldn’t get a work visa to tour in the States, so at the last minute I had to hire a new singer. The very last person I auditioned was Inyang. The moment she started singing I knew she was the one. It turns out she’d never really sung professionally; her day job at the time was working at Carnegie Hall in their 20th Century classical music division. Her background when she was growing up was listening to the Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols. It’s funny that this skinny white kid was introducing her to older gospel and soul music.

Did Spike suggest any singers for the album?

Yeah. I basically started asking friends of mine whom they would recommend. My criteria were quite specific: I was looking for people who had really interesting emotional voices but who could also write really interesting lyrics. Spike’s one recommendation was Skylar Grey. She’s known more for being a pop person, but her background is more singer-songwriter based and a little more experimental. I asked Daniel Miller, and his one recommendation was Cold Specks. The way it works with all the collaborators is, I sent them about five instrumentals to see if anything resonated with them. Each of them picked one or two that they liked. Once the vocals have been recorded and sent to me I then rewrote the song around the vocals.

Did you resend a track to multiple vocalists before you got a yes?

Oh yeah. I had 10 instrumentals I really loved and really wanted vocals on. I’m kind of mercenary when it comes to trying to get the right vocals on the right track. It’s almost like a weird form of musical promiscuity, where I would sometimes send the same instrumental to three different people to try to see if it resonates with anyone.

Where was the third time the charm?

The song that Mark Lanegan co-wrote, ["The Lonely Night"] — that had been instrumental for a few years. I had never quite felt comfortable with what people had sent back. Then I gave it to him, and all of a sudden it felt like the vocals and the music made sense together. I made the final mix around his vocals. The music is mixed very quietly; the whole intention was to draw attention to his vocals.

Do you end up editing lyrics a lot?

Sometimes. The only person [I did that with] on this record was Skylar Grey. She’d written a line in the song: “Shades of grey.” This was right at the height of the Fifty Shades of Grey popularity. Skylar, because she lives up in the mountains, hadn’t heard about the book. I had to get her to make some suggestions for things that didn’t sound like they were referencing Fifty Shades of Grey. She thought it was funny.

I want to ask you about “Saints”: It’s obviously your instrumental style, but it seems looser and grander than usual — a big sweep with a lot of moving parts. Did it take a long time to put together?

It was supposed to be an instrumental that someone was going to write lyrics to, and I couldn’t find the right person. At some point Spike and I realized it was pretty good as an instrumental, so the focus was to try and finish it. I hired an arranger at the very end — I’d written orchestral parts, and I wanted to know what it would be like if someone came in and wrote orchestral parts. There’s a lot of big, bombastic brass parts. I think there are 300 different string players on it. It’s mixed in a way that the orchestral stuff doesn’t overwhelm the track. It almost makes me want to do a weird orchestral mix of it that strips out the drums.

Were you thinking of how some of these songs might be interpreted live?

No [laughs]. I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t going to go on tour with this record. I’ve had that frustration in the past of recording music, putting it on a record, and then realizing that it’s impossible to play it live in any interesting way.

What led to the decision not to tour?

A lot of it involves aging. As I’ve gotten older I’ve started to realize that life is short, and as much as I like standing on stage and playing music, I love being at home working on music. Of course, it drives my manager crazy, because in 2013 very few people buy records and the only way musicians make money is by touring. Basically, I’m focusing on the one aspect of the music business that’s not at all lucrative, while turning my back on the only lucrative side of the music business.

Well, you’ve always had a contrary streak.

Yeah, I guess so. I appreciate that we all need to eat and need to pay the rent. But if you have a finite amount of time, shouldn’t it be spent on things that you really love and find important? Even if that means making less money and making my business manager and manager very unhappy, I’d still rather be in my studio working on music.

Moby first broke through in 1991 as a New York club DJ (he’d been a regular at the multi-level space Mars, in the Meatpacking District, where he’d play everything from hip-hop to dancehall reggae as well as house music and early techno) who’d scored a novelty hit: “Go,” which utilized Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks theme. Within two years of “Go” hitting the UK Top 10, the small, geeky multi-instrumentalist was signed to a major label (Elektra) and issuing critically-acclaimed titles (1993′s Move EP and 1995′s Everything Is Wrong) that bridged the rave underground and the pop mainstream. Dance purists blanched at first (and pop fans shrugged, at least in the States), but by 1999 — after a detour into loud rock with 1997′s divisive Animal Rights — Moby had perfected the amalgam with Play, a warm recasting of downtempo beats, sampled blues vocals, and inviting instrumentation that sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Since Play, Moby has settled into a comfortable niche as both a dance-music forefather (he frequently DJs at festivals around the world) and singer-songwriter whose songs are often sung by others. That’s particularly the case on the songful new Innocents, which pairs Moby not only with his first outside producer — Mark “Spike” Stent, who worked on Massive Attack’s early records as well as, in more recent years, Lady Gaga, Usher and No Doubt — but a half-dozen vocal guests of note: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Mark Lanegan, Damien Jurado, Cold Specks, Skylar Grey and Imyang Bassey, Moby’s longtime touring vocalist. eMusic’s Michaelangelo Matos spoke with Moby about the new album, the shrinking of New York studio space, and L.A.’s confusing topography.

Innocents is the first album you’ve made with an outside producer. Did that change how you wrote?

I’ve been working on music the same way for the past 30 years. I go into my studio and I play guitar or play keyboards or play around with different equipment and I just keep writing until I end up with something that I like. Sometimes I’ll read interviews with musicians who will talk about an erratically different way in which they approach making one record different from the next. I wish I had those interesting stories, because it’s really just me alone in my studio with a bunch of weird equipment, and it has been for quite a long time.

Because you were recording with someone else, did you treat your initial recordings as demos?

Yeah. I would go into my studio and spend about six months coming up with a bunch of ideas. When I first started meeting with Spike I had around 200 ideas, but clearly they weren’t 200 good ideas. We focused on probably 30-40 of those ideas and then we started reaching out to people who we thought might be interesting to have on the record. I got really lucky, because only a couple of people didn’t get back to us.

When did you begin to meet with Mark “Spike” Stent?

I think a year ago. To be honest with you, my grasp of time is kind of not that great. Like, the other day I was signing something and I had to put the date in there and I felt like the Absent-Minded Professor because I couldn’t remember what year it was.

[Stent] afforded me a degree of objectivity and perspective that I normally don’t have. Your perspective on what you’ve written really changes qualitatively the moment you share it with someone else. That for me was the main benefit of working with the producer is having this regained objectivity.

What led you to work together? Did you meet socially before this?

I’ve been signed to Mute Records for a while. Daniel Miller [the owner of] Mute Records, kept working with Spike and Alan Moulder, who did a lot of records. I really liked the records that Spike had worked on, some of the early stuff like the KLF and Massive Attack and Björk, which is ironic because a lot of people who want to work with him are interested in more of his pop productions [including Beyoncé and Madonna]. In turn, I think the reason he wanted to work with me is because I wasn’t interested in making a big pop record. I wanted to make something more lo-fi and weird.

You take a couple of guys in their 40s who spent most of their lives in studios, and the first thing they start talking about is their favorite weird old equipment. I have a slightly compulsive collection of tape delays — about eight of them. None of them work particularly well. You end up almost having an orchestra of tape delays. At one point the record was sounding very, very clean. So we ended up spending a couple of days putting the record through some sort of processing that would make these clean recordings sound more grimy and characterly.

The odd thing about…I would almost call it the new way of making records, because in the old days things were more compartmentalized. There was a writing period, followed by a recording period, followed by a tracking period: You’d have the drummer come in and spend a week doing drums, and then the bass, and then the vocals. Now you keep writing and recording and adding things to songs and playing around with stuff until things are done. The mixing process, rather than being a separate, added process, is almost a continuation of the creative process.

What changed the most from your initial idea of what the album might be and what it became?

When I first started thinking about this album I wanted it to be an underground, lo-fi dance record. Spike got me to change the focus to a more lo-fi melodic album. He said that when he listens to my records, what resonates with him is the more melodic music. He is the one who pushed it to become more like a singer-songwriter album. “Don’t Love Me” and “A Long Time” originally were very grimy, minimal dance tracks. He pushed me to give them more an emotional quality and more interesting chord structures. Those are the two holdovers from what the album was originally meant to be.

What lo-fi dance records inspired that initial idea?

Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English; a lot of early electronic music like Silver Apples and Suicide; Manu DiBango; a lot of Jamaican dance music and African dance music; and especially things that Wally Badarou played on. He’s one of my favorite musicians of all time. He’s the unsung hero of so many dance records. And a lot of New York records made in the early ’80s: Liquid Liquid, ESG, the Bush Tetras, Medium Medium, Konk. Just the records I grew up on. I’ve rediscovered them.

It’s funny — one of the people who helped me rediscover them was my old assistant Alex [Frankel]. He’s now in the band the Holy Ghost!, on DFA. When he was working with me, I would hang out with him and his friends, and they were all in their early 20s, and their favorite records were my favorite records when I was in my teens in the early ’80s. They kind of reintroduced me to the kind of music I loved. He was my assistant at the time [of 2008's Last Night]. I was playing the tracks I was working on to him. Every now and then he would get excited about something, and that was when I knew it was probably worth pursuing.

You moved to L.A. three years ago. Do you approach music differently there than you did in New York?

I think so. I have a sort of poetic-philosophical understanding of how living in L.A. has affected how I make music, and also a very practical, direct way. The direct way is college radio. Living in New York, I mainly listened to music that I owned. New York has good college radio, but terrible broadcast signal strength. Whereas in L.A., there’s KCRW and KXLU — really great college radio — and I think that’s affected how this album sounds.

On a more poetic level, L.A. is so vast, so byzantine, so weird and so un-cohesive, so in a way, when you move you have to make this huge effort to try and understand Los Angeles and make sense of it. Most cities are very cohesive: New York, Paris, Frankfurt, San Francisco, D.C., amazing, wonderful cities that are quite small and quite cohesive. Then you come to L.A. and it’s just [got] absolutely no cohesion. It almost makes people who live here search out a degree of smallness and comfort, because the city is so huge and confusing. I feel like this album has a smallness and comfort to it that might, oddly enough, [come from] living in L.A.

I thought I’d live in New York forever. Then I stopped drinking five years ago, and when I got sober I suddenly realized that New York is the single best place to be a drunk and unfortunately not the best place to be sober. The culture in New York revolves around going out and drinking and doing drugs and being degenerate, which is amazing when you can do that, but then you get sober and you feel kind of left out. Everyone in New York is out having the best time of their lives, and I’m at home watching 30 Rock DVDs. Also, I realized I wanted to be warm in the winter, and I wanted to be around nature.

New York, because it’s so affluent, most of the writers and musicians have been pushed out, so I wanted to live in a place that’s got more creative community. At some point I guess four or five years ago I realized that I actually had more friends [in L.A.] than I did in New York, especially when it comes to music. The real estate in New York is too expensive for anyone to have studios anymore. A couple of years ago, some friends of mine in L.A. were looking to record an orchestra in New York. There wasn’t a single recording studio in New York where they could record an orchestra. They ended up having to rent an empty space in a theater — and while they were recording, there was a huge Korean birthday party happening next door. They actually had to cancel [the session], because the Korean dance party music kept coming through the walls. Now, I actually don’t know too many professional musicians who don’t live in L.A.

You’ve been putting out records frequently these past few years. What kind of clock do you work on? Do you write music every day you can?

I don’t know how to do anything else, and it’s what I love to do. When I was 13 or 14, I spent a lot of time reading books, and some of my heroes from back then were Flannery O’Connor and Woody Allen and Picasso. I was always impressed by their work ethic, that idea of: When you’re inspired, go into the studio and work. When you’re not inspired, go into the studio and work. If you have success that means you should work more. If you have failure that means you should work more. No matter what’s going on an artist or writer or musician’s life, the only appropriate response is to keep working.

You’ve worked with vocalist Inyang Basey for a while now. How did you meet her?

When I was going on tour with the album Wait For Me I had a singer I was working with in the UK who couldn’t get a work visa to tour in the States, so at the last minute I had to hire a new singer. The very last person I auditioned was Inyang. The moment she started singing I knew she was the one. It turns out she’d never really sung professionally; her day job at the time was working at Carnegie Hall in their 20th Century classical music division. Her background when she was growing up was listening to the Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols. It’s funny that this skinny white kid was introducing her to older gospel and soul music.

Did Spike suggest any singers for the album?

Yeah. I basically started asking friends of mine whom they would recommend. My criteria were quite specific: I was looking for people who had really interesting emotional voices but who could also write really interesting lyrics. Spike’s one recommendation was Skylar Grey. She’s known more for being a pop person, but her background is more singer-songwriter based and a little more experimental. I asked Daniel Miller, and his one recommendation was Cold Specks. The way it works with all the collaborators is, I sent them about five instrumentals to see if anything resonated with them. Each of them picked one or two that they liked. Once the vocals have been recorded and sent to me I then rewrote the song around the vocals.

Did you resend a track to multiple vocalists before you got a yes?

Oh yeah. I had 10 instrumentals I really loved and really wanted vocals on. I’m kind of mercenary when it comes to trying to get the right vocals on the right track. It’s almost like a weird form of musical promiscuity, where I would sometimes send the same instrumental to three different people to try to see if it resonates with anyone.

Where was the third time the charm?

The song that Mark Lanegan co-wrote, ["The Lonely Night"] — that had been instrumental for a few years. I had never quite felt comfortable with what people had sent back. Then I gave it to him, and all of a sudden it felt like the vocals and the music made sense together. I made the final mix around his vocals. The music is mixed very quietly; the whole intention was to draw attention to his vocals.

Do you end up editing lyrics a lot?

Sometimes. The only person [I did that with] on this record was Skylar Grey. She’d written a line in the song: “Shades of grey.” This was right at the height of the Fifty Shades of Grey popularity. Skylar, because she lives up in the mountains, hadn’t heard about the book. I had to get her to make some suggestions for things that didn’t sound like they were referencing Fifty Shades of Grey. She thought it was funny.

I want to ask you about “Saints”: It’s obviously your instrumental style, but it seems looser and grander than usual — a big sweep with a lot of moving parts. Did it take a long time to put together?

It was supposed to be an instrumental that someone was going to write lyrics to, and I couldn’t find the right person. At some point Spike and I realized it was pretty good as an instrumental, so the focus was to try and finish it. I hired an arranger at the very end — I’d written orchestral parts, and I wanted to know what it would be like if someone came in and wrote orchestral parts. There’s a lot of big, bombastic brass parts. I think there are 300 different string players on it. It’s mixed in a way that the orchestral stuff doesn’t overwhelm the track. It almost makes me want to do a weird orchestral mix of it that strips out the drums.

Were you thinking of how some of these songs might be interpreted live?

No [laughs]. I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t going to go on tour with this record. I’ve had that frustration in the past of recording music, putting it on a record, and then realizing that it’s impossible to play it live in any interesting way.

What led to the decision not to tour?

A lot of it involves aging. As I’ve gotten older I’ve started to realize that life is short, and as much as I like standing on stage and playing music, I love being at home working on music. Of course, it drives my manager crazy, because in 2013 very few people buy records and the only way musicians make money is by touring. Basically, I’m focusing on the one aspect of the music business that’s not at all lucrative, while turning my back on the only lucrative side of the music business.

Well, you’ve always had a contrary streak.

Yeah, I guess so. I appreciate that we all need to eat and need to pay the rent. But if you have a finite amount of time, shouldn’t it be spent on things that you really love and find important? Even if that means making less money and making my business manager and manager very unhappy, I’d still rather be in my studio working on music.