Interview: Elder Island | LOUD Bristol Issue Three

Interview: Elder Island | LOUD Bristol Issue Three

Posted on: 27 Dec 2021

This article was first published in the third issue of LOUD Bristol, 365Bristol's dedicated music magazine. Read LOUD Issue Three and browse our first two editions here.

LOUD 3 Cover Tile.

Elder Island

 

Despite a low-key release earlier this year, Elder Island’s sophomore album is one of their most ambitious projects to date. The Bristol-based three-piece sit down between tour dates to discuss how Swimming Static came to be.

 

The post-lockdown period has been an exciting time for Elder Island. Having been holed up in their makeshift studio for the majority of the pandemic - recording, tweaking and polishing their eagerly-anticipated second album - the trio emerged earlier this year and are firmly back in the swing of things. When we connect for a virtual chat, vocalist Katy Sargent, bassist Luke Thornton and multi-instrumentalist Dave Harvard are regrouping between shows, having kicked off the UK leg of an extensive touring schedule just a few days earlier.

 

Formed in Bristol, Elder Island came about while the city was in the grip of the UK’s emergent dubstep scene. Katy and Dave lived together “in a really musical house,” Katy recalls, and would, alongside Luke, cobble money together to buy old instruments and equipment to see what they could come up with. Having started out with late-night jam sessions and countless days spent “messing about” with their music, the trio have graduated to increasingly prestigious venues and events across Bristol and around the world in recent years. At the time of writing, they’re touching 200 million streams on Spotify alone, with pockets of fans in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Istanbul and Sydney.

 

“It still blows my mind that it’s taken off in the way it has,” Katy says. “We had people on our first North American tour telling us they’ve been fans since the first EP came out years ago. You’re like, ‘that was so long ago and you’re on the other side of the world!’ – it’s just incredible.” I’m eager to chat with the band about Swimming Static, a rich, textured record that saw them take their experimental approach to songwriting to new heights during successive lockdowns. With influences spanning everything from classic house music to Arthurian mythology, the album sits comfortably between genres, serenading at one moment before introducing stirring dancefloor compositions the next.

 

“It was only once we started reflecting on what we were doing that we started going ‘ok, this is nothing like what we were talking about to start off with’”

 

Dave explains that, having spent the bulk of 2019 and early 2020 “relentlessly” touring their acclaimed debut album, The Omnitone Collection, the band immediately set to work on the follow-up once they returned from an extensive run of live shows. As it turned out, the coronavirus pandemic presented them with a timely opportunity to hide away and immerse themselves in a new project.

 

“We were really hyped up and talking about making a really dancey album, and as soon as we started making music and just seeing what happened it was just a case of going with it,” Dave says. “We were doing five or six jams a day - some were dancey, some were slow, some were just completely out there - it was only once we started reflecting on what we were doing that we started going ‘ok, this is nothing like what we were talking about to start off with’.”

 

The product of months of tweaking and tinkering is an expansive body of music bursting with deep, gradual introductions and shattering crescendos, tied together beautifully with Katy’s assured vocals. “I think lockdown gave us so much time to work on the songs, and introduced a lot of darkness,” Katy says. “There are these pops of light then also these low, brooding undertones.”

 

The ambitious nature of Swimming Static is most evident in ‘Queen of Kings’, a slow-burning track that was a “full-blown hour long” in its infancy before being whittled down to a much more album-friendly five minutes. Medieval-sounding drums and strings combine to create something that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Game of Thrones, before flittering synths and beats haul you back into the 21st century.

Elder Island on-stage at Bristol's O2 Academy in October 2021. Photo: Nellie FratelliElder Island on-stage at Bristol's O2 Academy in October 2021. Photo: Nellie Fratelli

 

The lyrics, and subsequently the composition,  were inspired by Morgan le Fay, an Arthurian character twisted from a powerful, positive female figure to a sorceress and a villain over centuries of patriarchal literature. ‘All my good deeds rewritten,’ opens one verse, ‘All I am made forbidden/A woman’s strength now hidden/Say villain le Fay/How they twist my name’.

 

“There were so many parts and ideas that really worked,” Luke says, “and once we were able to break down what Katy was singing about and really get the feel of the track, we found something to focus on.” Katy laughs and adds: “I’m a bit all over the place with lyrics, but once the track’s more established, we do try and lean into those themes to influence the instrumentation. It’s a really useful guide when you’re looking for a way or a place to use a certain sound.”

 

Like so many of their contemporaries, Elder Island weren’t able to play their new material live until recently, when they finally got their latest UK tour underway with shows in Brighton, Newcastle and Glasgow. A triumphant hometown show at Bristol’s O2 Academy followed, and the band will be going on to perform across Europe and North America in 2022. The return to the stage clearly couldn’t have come soon enough for Katy, Luke and Dave, who beam when I ask about their early shows and first reactions to live performances of their new music.

 

“The shows have been wonderful, crazy, lovely,” Katy tells me with a huge smile drawn across her face. “It’s been a journey to get everything in order – we were really worried about how some of the tracks would translate to the live shows, but we’re getting there and it’s sounding really good. People are enjoying it. We feel very privileged.” 

 

Head to Issuu to read the full third issue of LOUD Bristol, featuring an array of interviews with renowned artists, venues, labels and more.


Article by:

Matt Robson

 

Editor - 365Bristol.com & LOUD Magazine
 

Matt is a Journalism graduate and writer, passionate about supporting Bristol music, art and independent business. Get in touch via email at matt@365bristol.com.