Strong Asian Mothers are onto something. Their blending of styles, genres and eras have taken them right out of the pack and soaring ahead in their own world of flourished shades of electro-pop. Ringing all over the place and bouncing around like a frog in a sock – it has lead them to a cracking new EP ‘Animal’, one full of stunning highs and a wall of sound that’ll engulf you from the first listen.
Just how we like it then.
Following on from their debut ‘Lynx Africa EP’ was never going to be an easy feat, but with ‘Animal’ we’re into different territory. Strong Asian Mothers are about to have an important year.
Looking back on their success, the band commented on the ‘Animal EP’ – saying:
“After the runaway, global success of the ‘Lynx Arica EP’, the pressure on us to deliver again was enormous. It was all too much for Josh, who picked up a filthy burger habit and started listening to jazz again. We realised at that point we had to take matters into our own hands – we did a £237.34p Sainsbury’s shop and escaped to our friend’s mum’s house in leafy Oxfordshire for a week and wrote this. The ‘Animal EP’ is the sound of us taking our destiny back into our own hands and reconnecting with our true, pre-Lynx Africa selves.”
Eating burgers and watching jazz is no mean problem guys – though the owners of our local jazz club don’t seem to like it too much when we walk in with a Burger King…
Anyhow, we wanted to find out more about the making of their ‘Animal EP’, so we caught up with Strong Asian Mothers to give us the lowdown track by track. You’ll be able to catch the trio at their next headline show at London’s Kamio on April 27th, before they play this year’s Live At Leeds on April 29th and LeeFest Presents: The Neverland between August 10th-12th.
‘Just Another’
‘Just Another’ circles around the awareness of being one voice amongst many billions of other voices. Being another human bean in a long line of past, present and future human beans can be a comforting and connecting thought – but it can also be an overwhelming and claustrophobic one. Living in a big city hammers this feeling home. The internet, being the vast web of frequently tangled and clashing voices that it is, reminds us of it more maybe than ever before.
‘Sober’
‘Sober’ was inspired by waking up one morning after a heavy night and hearing in the next bedroom a girl shout at a boy ‘I CAN’T STAND YOU WHEN IM F**KING SOBER. It’s essentially about debauched drunken nights and flings in which one person wants more than the other does.
‘Animal’
Animal began as a jam between Josh and Amar in a rehearsal. We added some elephant shrieks, a pack of cards being riffle-shuffled, the sound of us opening a can of fizzy pop and saying “Aaaah” then sprinkled some words on top and it became the juicy, bouncy fella it is today.
‘Just Another’ Remix
Adam Halogen is a longtime collaborator, friend and occasional dinner party guest of Strong Asian Mothers so he was a natural choice. Also we couldn’t think of anyone else who we could really trust to turn the original on its head. We asked him for any thoughts on it and he said this: “Kickin’ in the front seat, Sittin’ in the back seat. Gotta make my mind up, Which seat can I take?”