Tame Impala | Currents

[bodysnatcher]

I watched their Coachella set this weekend and the new songs sounded great. I can't wait to see them live in a month.

My favorite part about seeing Tame Impala live is standing towards the outskirts of the crowd with my beer, and watching all the idiot teenagers getting dragged out of the crowd after they've tried drugs for the first time

[William Bloke]

I'd been meaning to come back and check this out since you posted it, finally did. That was pretty cool stuff.

[tommymtcom]

New track from Kevin's AMA.

Some interesting stuff in there, too:

Favorite Album -

HHHMMMMMMM. i Have no number 1. any of:
Air - Talkie Walkie
Supertramp - breakfast in America
Michael Jackson - thriller
QOTSA - rated R
probably some others...

Favorite of his songs -

Oh too hard! That's like asking me which one of my 30 children I love the most. .. .. .. AArgh i can't. I'm about to say one and then I feel bad for the rest of them.
Backwards has the most effortless charm I guess, and was the easiest to write. And I can still listen to it now without wanting to skip! Runway Houses is one I'm kind of impressed by in retrospect. The way all the parts fit together and the movement of it. Did you know it almost didn't make the album? Music to walk home by is probably a secret fav. It's like the kid that get's picked last on the football team am I'm secretly like "Go get em champ! I have to say though, there's a song on the new album called Eventually that is still very moving for me to listen to even after 951520974 listens and mixes. Oh but I mentioned a song and not the others!! weirdly enough I can still listen to each of these new songs and not feel the need to skip. Which is rare for me after 2 years of working on them.

On piracy -

Eh.... I feel like music will be free sooner or later, and i think I'm all for it. There's all this talk of music needing a monetary value, this ownership of music, even that it needs a physical form. But intrinsically... it's MUSIC, it should be better than that. Some of my most important musical experiences were from a burnt CD with songs my friend downloaded for me at a terrible digital quality... I didn't care... it changed my life all the same. For me the value of music is the value you extract from it. You want to know a story? Up until recently, from all of tame impala's record sales outside of australia I had received.... zero dollars. Someone high up spent the money before it got to me. I may never get that money. Then Blackberry and some tequila brand or something put my song in an ad. Then I bought a house and set up a studio. I know what you're thinking... "wait so...when I bought an album I was helping some businessman pay for his mansion on an island somewhere, and when some dude bought a mobile phone he was helping to pay an artist? WHHHYY?" I'll tell you why, IT'S MONEY. It doesn't always go where you want it to go. It's like a shopping trolley with a bung wheel. As far as I'm concerned the best thing you can do for an artist is LISTEN to the music...fall in love with it.......talk about it.........get it however you can get it....Let the corporations pay for. This is just my brain rambling remember, I'm sure there are holes in my theories... for example I realise not everyone's music is suited to a mobile phone ad, and it would be lame if artists tailored their music for that purpose.

On sounding like John Lennon -

Honestly, I NEVER heard it myself. For a long time I assumed it was just something someone said and then people ran with it. Then i was travelling in the car with my brother who I hadn't seen in a long time, and he was playing me one of his recordings. and I went "dude you sound like john lennon!" and he said "yeah didn't you ever hear dad sing? he totally sounded like him" suddenly it made more sense.
to add: i'm not sick of hearing it, i just go along with it.

funny story though: we were playing a show with Sean Lennons band and we decided it'd be fun for him to come and sing backups for Desire Be. I said it'd work because we have the similar voices. He smiled and said "yeah. you sound like my dad!"

[Kaius]

Awesome

[ridleybradout]

Awesome

Kevin is such a likeable dude.

Disciples is a great little song. New album could not arrive quick enough.

[zeb]

http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/446227/tame- ... online.htm

If the details are in fact accurate, Tame Impala’s third full-length will feature 13-tracks, spin for about 51 minutes and will be released *drumroll* July 18, at least that’s when it’s slated to hit Japanese shelves.

[diesel]

im surprised the album has a july release given the band tour starts in late spring. im seeing them on 6/6 and hope they play lots of new stuff not just the three singles.

[zeb]

[zeb]

An interesting piece with the album cover artist.

[Kaius]

I haven't been this excited for a new album in a long, long time.

[tommymtcom]

Fuckin A, this is going to be incredible.

[tommymtcom]

I can't wait to see these guys live. Only 11 days to go.

[zeb]

I can't wait to see these guys live. Only 11 days to go.

[ridleybradout]

Are we 'eventually' going to hear the whole album before it's released? I hope so, July seems a long time to wait given they're touring now.

[ridleybradout]

I missed this until now, a significantly cut-down version (obviously) of 'Let It Happen' on Conan.

It translates really well live, still my pick for song of the year

[i got bugs]

I was watching that particular conan randomly for whatever reason n was thinkin they def gotta cut the track down, right..

The newest one is just as good.. this is gonna be album of the year def

[diesel]

anyone know if they're selling the lp on tour? im going tomorrow. pumped!

[bodysnatcher]

anyone know if they're selling the lp on tour? im going tomorrow. pumped!

No

But that would be a pretty cool way to release a surprise album. Only sold at shows, out of the blue.

[diesel]

these guys are all about dense sythns/keys on this tour which leads to a bit of a darker sound. i think they played 2 or 3 new songs but i've been intentionally avoiding them until the album comes out. they're pretty good but a departure from the classic rock / psychedelic sound of their first two albums.

[zeb]

Kevin Parker talks about 'Currents', Tame Impala's third album, like the autobiography he's not had time to write. "'Lonerism' is about always shutting out the outside world," he says, "but chapter one of the next story, you realise that at some point there's so much force around you that to fight it just takes more energy to shut it out. There's a big undercurrent theme of transition, a transition of the self as a person. It's about giving in to forces that you can't control, even though your whole life seems to be wrong. 'Let It Happen' is like chapter one – it's track one, but it's also the first step. It's about someone finding themselves in this world of chaos – they realise it, but they've always been blocking it out, they've always been stopping the outside world from coming in, like blocking their ears."

When Kevin found himself in his own world of chaos – the whirlwind success of Tame's 2012 second album 'Lonerism' and the three years he's since spent riding that psychedelic glam unicorn of a record around the globe – he discovered a homely adventurer. The 'Lonerism' cash bought him a house in which he could set up a studio next door to a lighting studio, "where I can work on the visuals to a song at the same time as working on the song, which was magical, it gave it this other dimension. That was a luxury that I never had before. Just to be able to set up a studio and knowing that I didn't have to pack it up because of the rental agreement."

Here, he set about smashing psych to smithereens. "I think I just wanted to make songs that I had always wanted to do, but I'd always shut out, because I thought that those influences were taboo or not fitting the realm of psych rock. But the more I explore, the more I realise that those boundaries are meant to be broken. I've always loved groove-based music – for me, 'Lonerism' was like the gateway to that; there was a lot of groove on 'Lonerism'. I never really found out how to make really crunchy dream pop, and at the same time making really hard hitting groove music with a strong beat – but I think I'm getting closer. Every album I make I feel like I get closer to making like the ultimate kind of music that I would want to listen to."

Though, on paper, it sounds like the musical equivalent of Picasso improving Guernica by colouring it in, Kevin's groovier tangent has actually managed to deliver a better album than 'Lonerism'. From the Air-ish disco of 'Let It Happen' and 'The Moment' to the synthetic plastifunk of 'The Less I Know The Better', it's consistently faultless rather than revolving around a planet-sized 'Elephant'. Ironic, then, that the personal transitions it describes end up a bit of a mess, to be frank.

Sublime psych popper 'Eventually' tackles the struggle of "knowing that you have to leave something, that you've gotta move on, knowing you're about to damage someone, and the only consolation is that a long time in the future, it's going to be OK. It's going to work itself out". 'Disciples' is about the friends that don't want to hang out with you anymore. And 'New Person, Same Old Mistakes'? "That's the last chapter," Kevin explains. "It's like the final battle – or the final stand-off between optimism and pessimism. You feel like you've evolved into a new person but at the same time you've gone full circle. You feel like this brand-new person but in the end nothing's been changed because you're making the same mistakes."

www.nme.com