“Every time we record an album we make an effort to take a different approach. Our shifting musical tastes, particularly a deep appreciation for the golden age of hip-hop, made us want to record this album ourselves using those old school production techniques. In a lot of ways it’s been very much about post-production, taking performances of ourselves and re-sampling, editing and mangling them in ways that we couldn’t replicate had we just recorded the songs live like we’d done previously.”
“We’ve amassed a huge amount of gear over the lifetime of the band and all of that played a part in the making of this album, but there were a few really vital bits and pieces that have helped shape the sound of the album.”
The Laurels are a bunch who don’t mess around when it comes to their gear. As you can tell from their latest single Zodiak K, the band have a knack for producing a sound that is both enthralling and wonderfully weird. For the upcoming first issue of Happy Mag, the band gave us some insight into their favourite pieces of gear that they used to record their next album, which is set to drop later this year.
Here’s a quick snippet of the gear the boys froth, but if you want to read the whole thing you’ll have to check out Happy Mag! And remember, if you subscribe you’ll also go in the running to win a double pass to Secret Garden!
Akai MPC 2500
“The MPC is filled with a huge library of samples which were collected over a few years from records, drum machines and found sounds. Some of the songs on the record were constructed entirely from samples which we then went in and rewrote and re-sampled ourselves. The MPC allows you to chop up stuff like orchestral samples and completely re-arrange them in ways that are unrecognisable and that completely shift the feel from the original source.”
Happy Mag will celebrate it’s launch with a big party at The Union Hotel on January 22, with performances from Donny Benet, Big White, Bin Juice and Wells.
