Appearing in The Guardian’s ‘Ones to Watch’ list, Halifax’s indie-rock outfit The Orielles stormed various critics’ lists in 2017 with their debut album, ‘Silver Dollar Moment’.
Building on such momentum, the band return with new album ‘Disco Volador’. And if recent singles ‘Come Down on Jupiter’ and ‘Space Samba’ are a benchmark of what we can expect from the new record then the band will make many more best-of lists this year. Damian Robinson caught up with guitarist Henry Wade to find out more.
‘Space Samba’ has such a dance floor groove to it…how did the sound come about?
We knew we wanted to go dancier with this record compared to ‘Silver Dollar’ and our intention was always to make a really dancey pop track. Partly because there are a lot of parts in it, it took quite a lot of different forms in its creation.
Is the groove on this record a good indication of what we can expect from ‘Disco Volador’?
I think so, yes. If you take our first single ‘Come Down on Jupiter’, which was always going to be the first release from this album, and then ‘Samba’, the sound of ‘Disco’ is everything in-between those two tracks. As it happens, they start and end the album so there’s a definite purpose in the sequencing and the release schedule.
‘Silver Dollar Moment’ topped many ‘best of’ lists…did that make it difficult to follow up?
Not really, no. As a group, we had quite a few conversations about the sound we wanted from this album, and also if anyone felt pressure to follow up ‘Silver Dollar’. However, as a group, we felt no pressure at all. We were all calm, focused and ready to create our next record. If anything, the critical reaction to ‘Silver Dollar’ helped us feel really excited to follow it up.
And now comes the difficult moment of taking the album and working out how to play it live. The first gig of the tour is up in Newcastle. How are you preparing for it?
The record is certainly taking a different form in the live setting than it is in the studio setting and we’ve bought loads of new equipment to help us recreate the sounds live. We’re speed practising at the moment so most days we’re together for short bursts of practice where we intensely recreate the material and make sure it’s sounding as good as we can make it.
You’re excited about the Newcastle show then?
We can’t wait. We’ve only played Newcastle once and halfway through the first song there was an electricity cut on the street so we’ve literally never even played a full song in Newcastle. We can’t wait to get back and play.
‘Disco Volador’ is released on Friday 28th February through Heavenly Records. The Orielles play Riverside, Newcastle on Tuesday 25th February.
Tickets, priced at £13.75 in advance, are available from riversidencl.co.uk.
