Dangermouse sorted

The Shortwave Set have confirmed Dangermouse for their third album

01 August 2008 - The Shortwave Set have confirmed they will be working with super producer Dangermouse again on their 3rd album.

The Gnarls Barkley man added his magic touch to their current album Replica Sun Machine , and the band were so pleased with the finished product they've lined him up for the next one too.

Dangermouse initially approached them after hearing and liking their first album, The Debt Collection – they soon provided support for Gnarls Barkley.

When asked of the impact working with the respected producer has had on the way their second album was received, The Shortwave Set’s frontman Andy, responded: “People are curious about how a band like us, not the obvious band, would immediately get a phone call from a big American record producer - and I think it has definitely had an impact on the way people have regarded us.”

In terms of the next, the band aim to have the record written by the end of the Autumn and are aiming to record it over winter.

Although, as always - it depends on Dangermouse's busy schedule.

Frontman Andy explained: “He’s is a busy man, and to be honest we haven’t sat down and completely nailed down any scheduling on it. It’s still a bit early to do that, but it was the same last time, he was working on x, y, z. But he never takes holidays.”

Dangermouse may always be moving onto new projects - working with the likes of Beck and Martina Topley-Bird as well as his own successful project Gnarls Barkley; but despite his hectic diary, Andy says it was Dangermouse’s idea they team up again.

He said: “Dangermouse mentioned it before we did about doing another record, because I think he had a lot of fun making our album and this was obviously really great to hear - that he’d had fun more than anything else, and that he was proud of it.”

"Dangermouse mentioned it before we did about doing another record, because I think he had a lot of fun making our album."
The Shortwave Set's frontman

Plans for the 3rd

About their current album, Replica Sun Machine , Andy said: “It’s quite elliptical this record, quite bleak. A lot of the meanings are kind of hidden and there’s a dream like, surreal quality to some of the lyrical aspects of the record.”

As for their next contribution, the singer said they've already decided they want record number 3 to be much more "direct".

“We really wanna make a much more direct record, lyrically and musically, I think just to counterpoint this one a little bit,” he said.

The new single

Their forthcoming single Now Till ‘69 comes out on 4 August.

“It comes from a dream about a fruitless chase and then it recycled itself into a song about eras in time,” Andy said, explaining the story of the song.

He revisited the album’s theme as a whole: “The whole album is based around themes of time, about how the past, present and the future sometimes merge into one - and how there’s an inability to recognise important moments when you’re in them. They only become significant later when you look at them as a past event.”

The singer also said there are references to popular culture matters and the cyclical nature of how we bring back past trends and moments, into the present.

He said: “This year 1969 will be the big year to revive, and next year it will be 1977, and the next it’ll be 1981 - and so there’s that sense of trying to reconnect with important moments in time both on a personal level and also on a cultural level.

“It’s sad that in your own life you don’t realise what a beautiful moment something is until it’s long gone - you don’t actually enjoy and treasure it.”

In terms of the sound of the song, Andy said: “There’s a bit of melancholic sentiment to the song even though it’s quite an upbeat number – we just try to disguise it with a jolly tune.”

Georgie Rogers