Leisure Share New Album 'Twister' + Interview

Aotearoa musical collective Leisure have rolled out their sophomore studio album Twister, following a tantalising and dancefloor-igniting run of singles which caught the ears of such international taste-makers as Highsnobiety. The sonic panorama expressed on Twister – encompassing zones of smooth-grooving funk, soul, exotica and balearic club beats – is reflective of the diversity of influences each bandmate brings to the table, with the five-piece's lineup including members of HIGH H00PS and The Melancholies. To say Leisure are riding high is putting it mildly – they recently returned from touring Europe and the UK, they played an unforgettable headline event with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra last year at Auckland Town Hall, and their total streams are currently clocking up at over a staggering 70 million. You can catch the crew celebrating their record's release on a four date national tour kicking off this weekend in Auckland and Wellington – enjoy a stream of Twister below, and scroll downwards for roving reporter Fluffy's chat with Leisure's Tom Young (who also released a superb solo single just yesterday) about their latest long-player...

Leisure

Tickets available HERE via UTR (ticket + vinyl bundle also available)*

Fluffy: Could you give us the lowdown on your new album Twister?

Tom Young: Twister is a mix of a bunch of different things that we wanted to explore. Maybe the biggest change is that we’ve been playing live a lot more since our first album came out. We wanted to make songs that were a bit more suitable to that environment, or a bit more fun for us. It gave us some energy that was lacking from our set when we only had that first record out. For me Twister describes the process of making it, a few delays and record label stuff. The boys have different definitions but Twister summarises the process, I reckon.

I wanted to ask where some of the aural and lyrical inspirations behind the record might have come from?

We write about love and that kind of stuff, but I think because we’re a little bit older, the themes are issues or things that you come across with long term relationships. Issues involving your independence and things you have to, not give up, but kind of analyse when you’re getting serious with someone. You can’t just go out whenever you want or do whatever you want to do. You’ve got to sacrifice some things for the greater good. Musically, I feel like it's from the same place as the first record. Which is systemic of pretty much everything really – Jordan and Josh are big hip hop guys and I'm into more atmospheric or psychedelic stuff.

I could hear a few different vibes going down. I suppose that’s from working collectively and mushing all your influences together?

Yeah, definitely. Which can be a problem sometimes for some people but I feel like we’re pretty good at our ego stuff and just kind of trusting each other and respecting each other.

It seems to be a recurring theme of you guys referring to Leisure as a collective. I wondered where that fits in a wider societal context, being that these days there’s lots of emphasis on the self and individualism?

I think we call it a collective because we had plans to branch out and produce other artists as well and do our own projects that come under the umbrella of the Leisure collective, just trying to create a communal feeling. Which we’re still working on, we haven't really done much of the production for other people that much. So that was the idea of the collective. Then just encouraging each other’s individuality within the group as well.

I read a quote from you guys, talking about this idea of being creatively unconscious?

We’ve been in the game long enough that we hopefully know what not to do, trying to avoid over-thinking. You know when you’re stuck on something for so long and you overdo it and it kills what you originally like about the thing? We’re getting pretty good now and we know that the first take or the first couple of takes will be the one, so we’re always prepared to capture that as it happens.

Presale editions for the vinyl version Twister were a nice deep purple. Was there anything that inspired that? Are you feeling particularly purple at the moment?

That was kind of the idea we had, because the first one was red. I remember saying, when we were talking about the second album “lets just do that but make it purple, in terms of sonics, a bit more lush”. We didn't really hang on to the purple thing but I think it did slip in there a little bit.

Scrolling through your social media, there’s lots of people begging you to come and play in their town or country. That must feel pretty cool?

Yeah, we’re pretty lucky like that. I think we got lucky maybe five years ago when blogs were a big thing to find music with. We came in just as that was dying. We were lucky enough to get put on this international platform where we’re kind of listened to equally throughout the world, which is really awesome.

You guys have a release show next weekend at the Powerstation. What can audiences expect to see from that?

Yep, next Friday. We’re trying to do a bit more with the lighting and stage production. There’s gonna be more songs because we’ve got another record to play with. We just went overseas so that helped us grind our axes a little bit and nudge our set and refine everything and reorder things. So yeah, we’re real excited.