Groove Armada are back with a new sound. The new album, "Black Light" is a collision of alt and electronic genres featuring vocalist Bryan Ferry from Roxy Music, Empire of the Sun, UK pop star Will Young, and introducing Saint Savior. Get ready to hear Groove Armada like never before.
Not many bands' sixth albums could be described as bold, brave, fresh, adventurous or representing a new creative peak. But Groove Armada's brilliant Black Light is all of those things and more. Twelve years into a career as purveyors of top drawer dance music, Andy Cato and Tom Findlay have completely reinvented their sound, with thrilling results. This, folks, is not just Groove Armada. This is the new, re-focused and re-energized Groove Armada (with a glitterball-shaped cherry on top).
"We could've knocked out an album of ragga-influenced house bangers and a couple of chill out tunes, and that would've been a much easier life," explains Andy. "But we needed a new challenge. Neither of us was interested in just repeating ourselves." Instead, the music-obsessed duo took inspiration from the new breed of acts they were booking for their award-winning London festival, Lovebox. "Bands like the Friendly Fires, Klaxons, Passion Pit, LCD Soundsystem, Ladyhawke and MGMT," says Tom. "They're the ones really leading the charge, making genuinely exciting, dance-informed music. And that sound really pushed us back towards people like Bowie, Gary Numan, New Order, Fleetwood Mac and Roxy Music."
When the duo got together in Findlay's basement studio in north London to start work on a new album, it was clear they were thinking along similar lines. "We didn't really sit down with a plan," says Tom. "We just started making the noises we wanted to make and this whole electro-driven, rock-tinged, song-based thing started to come out."
The very first song they made for the album was Warsaw, a dark, juddering, electro-rock monster that's one of several Black Light tracks to feature vocals from Empire of the Sun's Nick Littlemore ("The most creative mind I've met for 10 years," says Andy). The track quickly became an online hit when it was offered as a free sneak preview of the band's new sound in September 2009. A comment on one music blog summed up the mood: "Brilliant track – like going to eat a kitkat and finding it's entirely made of chocolate. Not what I was expecting but a lovely surprise."
Feeling similarly inspired by their creation, Andy and Tom used it as the driving force for Black Light. For the next 14 months, they could be found spending 19 hour days hunched over mixing desks, instruments and computers, either in Tom's London studio or in Andy's, at his rural French home (nicknamed "Chateau Cato" by Pete Tong). "It certainly wasn't an easy record to make," says Tom. "I was really more of a beats and bleeps person until now, so I did feel massively removed from our comfort zone."
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Allmusic
