With rugged hooks, unfiltered noise, and fierce melodic sensitivity, Midas rips up the script of traditional second albums and establishes the band as an addictive generational talent.
Wunderhorse headed to Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, to embark on their first collaborative recording process.
With Grammy Award-winning producer Craig Silvey (The Rolling Stones, The National, Florence + The Machine) on board, the band looked to do something different.
Their goal – in the very same studio that Nirvana put In Utero to tape and PJ Harvey recorded the Mercury Prize-nominated Rid of Me – was to push themselves outside of their comfort zones. Silvey held the band to their word.
For
Midas, the album's title track and first single, Silvey had the tape running for what the band assumed was a scrappy and unformed practice take.
When it was finished, he said they'd hit the jackpot. Leaning into their loose and raw live show in the studio became a guiding principle for the process that would follow.
"Every time we wanted to change something or do something again, he would remind us of our aim and our mission and say, "Look, if that's the kind of record you want to make, making these changes and polishing it isn't going to serve that purpose"," Slater says, with Fowler adding:
"In some ways, Craig beat the musicianship out of all of us a little bit." The result is an album of songs played with fire and fury, and reflective of their energy as performers.
The majority of the songs on the album were written by Slater in the studio and put to tape before that initial scrappy magic was diluted.
"There's plenty of wonderful things about the modern world," says Slater, "but in terms of the creative processes, there are things that have been lost.
"I definitely noticed the difference when we employed the more traditional methods.
"We wrote some of our best music in the space of a month. It was a real wake-up call for how we're going to do things in the future."
Wunderhorse play two sets at Brighton Resident Music (6pm & 7pm) on 1st September 2024. For more info CLICK HERE.