But now album number four, Mines, is done. Barsuk will release it in North America on July 27, and Europe will get it one day earlier via City Slang. They also released the non-album track “Pilgrim’s Progress” on a split Record Store Day 7″ with the Helio Sequence.
Pitchfork Interview
Pitchfork: When I talked to you last year, you said that it was taking a while to get the songwriting process going. Did that end up taking a long time?
Justin Harris: Yeah. I think more than anything, it just took a long time to get the three of us on the same page at the same time. Events over the year and our personal lives kept delaying the process. But ultimately, I look at it as refinement after refinement, and the end result is what we have.
Pitchfork: Did you go through multiple versions of these songs during the writing process?
JH: Yeah. Typically on our albums, each song goes through a number of permutations based on just what each one of us might do to it, and then what each one of us might change back. I wouldn’t say any of the versions were drastically different than what they ending up being, but yeah, there’s definitely that process: one of us finishing something, being really excited about it, and handing it off to the others. Then the others want to change stuff, and we inevitably have to talk about where we compromise, or what gets actually changed and what stays. Each one of us usually has a very good case built against why something should stay the way it is, and the other has a good case built against why it shouldn’t. That process can be time-consuming.
Pitchfork: With all three of you playing different instruments and taking on multiple roles in the band, I would imagine that everything would be a lot harder. There’s no clear leader of the band, and everyone plays everything.
JH: Yeah, it does add to the difficulty. I’ve never been in a band where there is a main songwriter or two, so I don’t know really how it differs from other peoples’ process. But I can imagine that scenario would make things go a little more smoothly and efficiently. But also, I’m really grateful to have band members that are equal contributors. I think it just adds to the diversity of songs. The layers, I suppose, are a little more in-depth than they might be if one person was doing the same thing for most of the songs. I suppose that we could get into a monotonous wreck if one person was doing most of the songwriting. Not to say that bands that have one songwriter are monotonous, but it’s something I don’t have experience with. I do appreciate that aspect of our band.
Pitchfork: You cover a lot of stylistic ground on the record, more so than on previous records. Horns play a big part, and certain songs are more aggressive than I’ve heard you guys get before. How did this evolve into a more all-over-the-place album?
JH: I don’t know. It appears that the older we get, the more polarized we become. Each one of us has such different taste and views on what music we like at this point in our lives. I’m pretty certain that’s contributed to the stylistic diversity. Over the last three years, there’s been some just big changes in each one of our lives. That’s also a solidifying of ideas of music– what we think a song should contain, and what it shouldn’t. Certainly in this album, it came out more emotional than any previous album has. Lyrics were a big focus for us this time around. It wasn’t something we were consciously talking about. We didn’t start out trying to cover a lot of stylistic bases, but I would agree that we did.
