LITTLE DRAGON
By merely listening to Little Dragon, it’s nigh on impossible to identify them as a band that calls Sweden home. The Gothenberg-based electronic act perform their intricate, synth-based music solely in English; while this aspect of their sound contrasts with other similar acts like Iceland’s Sigur Ros, whose lyrics are written and performed in their native Icelandic tongue, Little Dragon’s frontwoman Yukimi Nagano says that the choice isn’t anything out of the ordinary for a contemporary Swedish artist.
“It’s really common now; almost all Swedish artists will write in English,” Yukimi says from her Sydney hotel room. Little Dragon are in town as the opening act for the maiden Australian tour for Gorillaz, as well as a few sold-out headline shows of their own. “It’s actually quite hard, it takes a different skill to write good lyrics in Swedish… 90% of the biggest Swedish artists write in English. It’s actually rarer to write in Swedish.”
Yukimi explains the decision as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and when weighing up this artistic move against the rest of the wide-ranging soundscapes created by Little Dragon, maybe it is. Sweeping and swirling industrial synths, jarring keyboards and splashy drums underpinned by a (somewhat incongruous) general feeling of jazz and R’n’B. That’s not to say that the sound is an unintelligible mish-mash; far from it, the disparate elements mesh together to form tracks that are at once energetic and relaxed, tracks that you can dance to or chill to in equal measure. Bringing to mind groups like Cibo Matto, it’s a mysterious, ethereal sort of music that drones and shimmers, before surprising you with a sharp breakdown or a soaring vocal melody courtesy of Miss Yukimi. It’s hard to effectively pin down their sound, or give them a genre label; a characteristic, Yukimi says, born of a real desire to experiment, and an “anything goes” attitude to their music.
“We never have any plans or goals… It’s pretty spontaneous. It’s just the way that we do things. It’s just playing around, and trying stuff. It’s about what you’re making in the moment; it’s about what you’re feeling.”
For latest album, Machine Dreams, the band were apparently feeling a little philosophical in the studio. Machine Dreams is a loosely conceptual album that looks at the blurring of the line between humans and computers; a fitting topic for a band that makes such heavy use of synthesiser and digital production, and a topic that Yukimi is all too happy to wax lyrical on.
“We live at a really exciting time. Neuroscience is teaching us so much about ourselves, bringing up philosophical discussions about human nature, and what we are,” she gushes, showing a genuine interest in the topic; in an era where press releases reveal more about a concept album than the artists themselves can actually articulate in interviews, it’s refreshing to find a musician that has some knowledge about that which they are exploring. “It’s an interesting topic, we like the sci-fi nature of it. I don’t think we’re machines, but definitely more predictable than we’d like to think.”
When asked about her personal feelings on the idea of a greater intertwining of humanity and technology, Yukimi is frank in her appraisal: “I’m not scared of it!” she laughs. “But some people feel very intimidated by it; like it’s crushing the biology of life a little bit. I’m not saying that we’re not complex beings; I like the sort of mystique around these ideas. In neuroscience, people are comparing the brain to computers which is controversial; but it’s very exciting.”
Which brings us around nicely to the main reason for our chat with Little Dragon; their tour with the absolute physical manifestation of a human/technology hybrid, the world’s most successful animated band, Gorillaz. After collaborating with Damon Albarn and co. on their latest album, the much-lauded Plastic Beach, Little Dragon opened shows for Gorillaz all over Europe, before jumping on a plane to warm up crowds on the band’s first ever Australian tour.
“It’s been amazing,” Yukimi says. “We’ve been wanting to come to Australia for a really long time; this tour couldn’t be better.” As mentioned, she’s sitting in a Sydney hotel room, preparing for a sold-out Little Dragon headline show at Sydney’s Good God Small Club, with a Gorillaz show the day after at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. The contrast between the two venues is not lost on her: “the shows with Gorillaz have been really big, we’re more used to playing in small clubs!”
With Yukimi promising a “more upbeat, soulful, tribal-influenced” album will soon be on the way, and the massive exposure already generated from the Gorillaz tour, we’re sure that Little Dragon will be upgrading to bigger venues the next time they hit Australia.
By Josh Butler for Pagesdigital.com
