Band Of The Week #136 - Sunken
This week’s Band of the Week is London five piece Sunken, who have just released their new EP ‘Hometime’. Over the past few months Sunken have been slowly revealing themselves with a steady release of music, creating a captivating universe around them by blending elements of soul, trip-hop, indie and electronica . They took a moment to explain their music further and how the EP came together.
Hey there, how are you? So the EP is out now - how does it feel?
Finn: Hey, thanks for having us chat about the EP. Its pretty nice to have it coming out, the last single particularly feels like it kinda solidified something for us, so to be able to bring the campaign to a close around that moment is great.
It is titled ‘Hometime’ - does that hold a certain meaning to you?
Finn: How we came to the title of this EP is pretty synonymous of the process of making this record, chaotic & inefficient. We took on a studio in Bermondsey, I think sometime last year, and wrote a song called Hometime. We then got kicked out of the studio so the name was about all we got from it! The demo never even made the cut.
Where was the EP recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the process you are happy to share with us?
Finn: The EP was recorded in a bunch of places. A combination of bedrooms and studios. We were lucky to have some really amazing collaborators along the way, who helped to shape the sound I suppose. We knew we wanted to hang onto the production side of things, so we approached Andy at Press Play in Bermondsey to help record/engineer. He was great. He could talk about his experience with Stereolab, and working on dots and loops, and passed on some real expertise and pushed us to be more experimental. He had a big hand in ‘Jupiter’, it wouldn’t sound the same without him. We also worked on that track at Zero7s studio, and the track name came from using the Jupiter 8 synthesiser they have. Henry from Zero7 is one of the good guys, I think we probably wouldn’t have kept going without his encouragement. The newer tracks on the EP were finished with Daniel Moyler, in his lovely studio in Brockley. He ended up co-producing three of the songs with us, has a really distinct way of working his drum sound which really helped on Zombie & Sorry For Everything.
The band originates from siblings Poppy and Finn, do you ever encounter those brother/sister arguments but with your music?
Finn: Ermm - not to be existential but I suppose like the last few years has been pretty difficult for everyone. Turbulent times, so it’s been a privilege to be able to get a record together whilst the world seemingly falls apart. Of course there are moments, but at the end of the day we are still friends thankfully.
Does the family connection strengthen the music for you?
I think so. I think we have an extra understanding from that background.
What are the key themes and influences on this EP?
Poppy: Theres a lot about love and loss which is super typical but I feel to just write whatever I have the most to say about, especially when its things a lot of people can relate to, that whole ahhh to be young and in love, I like the innocence and the youthful nature that probably comes across. Its nice to think people can take comfort in sharing the same feelings even if it’s something dreary or depressing lol. We were influenced by so many amazing artists, I would say mainly Cocteau twins- everything about their music is very appealing and so calming/ enjoyable to listen to. Mazzy Star, songwriting wise was also a huge influence. We also listened to a lot of older French artists like Serge Gainsbourg, there were a few more upbeat tracks we loved like ‘L’anamour’- I listened to this at least twice a day for weeks/months and it put me in the best mood, it inspired one of our singles ‘visions of you’ as well, that dreamy pop kind of feel.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
Poppy: I feel like I’m constantly changing my mind about the lyrics I write and maybe its because I lose attachment to whatever I’ve written about as time goes by, but Im equally fairly sentimental about them to some extent. My favourite from this EP are probably from our first single somewhere not real; ‘Impaled along the line somewhere not real’. It was one of those songs where the lyrics came fairly naturally and I completely understood what I was describing, for this it was a moment in time that was stuck and kind of fading away in a void so I’ve always liked those lyrics in particular, and for once they actually made complete sense to me haha.
Now the EP is out there, what next?
Poppy: We’re working on our second EP! Some of the singles we had written a while ago and developed more recently. Its definitely sounding a lot more grungy and heavy than our first EP, which we really like because we’ve all been listening to similar music and naturally gravitated towards a heavier sound which we all really love. We’re super excited about working on it and hopefully it will come together nicely.