By Del F. CowieHaving known, played and lived together since three quarters of the band met in high school, electronic Swedish quartet Little Dragon seem to finally be reaping the rewards of their hard work with the release of their third album Ritual Union. While Swedish-Japanese lead singer Nagano may have been previously known to electronic music fans as a featured vocalist on music by Koop in the early aughts, the group members, also featuring drummer Erik Bodin, bassist Frederik Källgren Wallin and keyboardist Håkan Wirenstrand formally came together in 2006 as Little Dragon after various other musical excursions (naming the band after Nagano's penchant for studio temper tantrums) and have not looked back since, releasing a critically acclaimed self-titled album in 2007, followed up by the new wave-fuelled Machine Dreams in 2009. With their initial offerings only available via import in North America, word of the group began to spread slowly, but when it did it reached very influential ears. Now the band can count esteemed musicians such as Questlove of the Roots, TV on the Radio, Raphael Saadiq, Big Boi, Erykah Badu and Gorillaz as not only peers, colleagues and collaborators, but as ardent fans of their music. Drummer Erik Bodin took some time on a brief stay back at home in Gothenburg to talk with Exclaim! about the group's musical journey to this point and their work with other artists.
How has the number of outside collaborations affected the band? I think in our real world and everyday life it hasn't changed much. We've been seeing things grow gradually from the very beginning. I mean if you look back at it now, maybe now, where are we a year after the Gorillaz release? Of course we can see at least some kind of step up with crowds and things, but in that case I think the effect is good, a lot of new people. Somehow, it feels like we are here because of what we are doing ourselves not so much because of the collaborations. At the same it helps. Collaborations have always been a bit of a nervous thing for us, because we like to feel 100 percent honest with what we do and if you bring in somebody that you don't really know, you don't want to feel like you're [too] polite, you don't want to feel like you are saying yes to something that you shouldn't necessarily have said yes to otherwise. I think we've been lucky, we're a bit of control freaks so collaborations make us a little "Uh... we're not sure" but there's been some really interesting people reaching out like Raphael Saadiq and Big Boi, people that we really, really admire so it's worth taking the risk.
It sounds like you are not approaching these people, they approach you. Yeah, that's been the case, yeah exactly. We're like a little bump over here in Gothenburg on the wrong side of the Atlantic making our music and we don't really have the channels to reach out to these people, but somehow it isn't so difficult. If they could reach out I'm sure we could if we wanted to, but we haven't been trying so far.
With this record, there are no guest appearances from huge stars you've worked with in the past. Was there any temptation to do any of that? No, There was no real temptation. There is always a wish from label people, "Why don't you do this or this?" Plus, what if we make a really great song with someone else? We really see ourselves as a live band and we go on tour and that person's not there, who's going to be standing in? It's kind of very practical, it may sound silly, but that's the feeling. And plus it's nice to know that it's still just the band, 'cos we're kind of sentimental with the whole band thing and being a band and all that that means, being a family. Collaborations are great, but in a way it's a kind of a business thing. On this record we wanted to do what we always did, experimenting in the studio, goofing around. It's easier done with old friends.
Can you tell me a bit about the recording process at the Seal Colonie art commune? I'm assuming you guys don't live there together anymore, but you go back there to record? Yeah, that's what it is. I think we were lucky. About ten years ago a guy I was playing with, he wanted to sell his studio and I had been there rehearsing there. They were the originators of the whole Seal name, but they were the lazy guys just hanging around and then after we took it over, me and Håkan, the keyboard player, came first and then Yukimi and Fred came in and out. There's a lot of history in that place, it's nice we still have it. It's kind of between tram lines in Gothenburg, so I guess they should have torn it apart a long time ago because of where the place is located and it's kind of difficult to renovate with anything. But that's been our holy junkyard where we have all our synths and all our pieces and all the drums and everything. As soon as we are home from tour, we're very hungry to go back there and make more music. For this record, some of the songs were done maybe two years ago actually, but the process has been on and off. Every time we were home, we were there. Towards the end when we felt we had the right material to put the songs together for this album we started working on them in a group. Most of the time it starts with me and Yukimi or Fred and Yukimi or Håkan and Yukimi, in a duo kind of thing. So there's a lot of ideas in that format, but when it's time to make an album, that's when we start adding stuff, all of us, and coming with ideas and everything was done by ourselves, homemade.
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