UK three piece Errors have followed up critically acclaimed 2012 album Have Some Faith In Magic with album number four, Lease of Life, formulated on the Hebridean Isle of Jura. Tomatrax caught up with Steev Linvingstone to ask a few questions.
It’s been a little while since your last album, what have you been up to over this time?
We decided to take some time off from touring and writing in order to start with a more enthusiastic and fresh manner. We are lucky that we are in the position where we are able to do this and the record label are happy to wait a little longer for new material. I think it paid off- we wouldn’t have made the record we made without that break. It was also nice to have time to do normal things that we had missed like going on holiday, DJing, making music with other people, hillwalking and hanging out with friends.
What made you pick Lease of life as the title track?
I guess sonically it kind of showcases the entire album and is also pretty upbeat. The vocal samples in it sound to me like some sort of mechanical breathing so Lease of life seemed like an appropriate title.
Given the critical acclaim of your previous work did you feel any pressure when putting your latest album together?
Not really. I think we always have our own criticisms about each album we’ve made after we’ve had enough time to digest it so we are always keen to improve with each new release. The day we make a record that we don’t think we can better, is the day we’ll give up, perhaps.
Your bio describes your album as a start-to-finish experience that’s bound by recurring constituents and accomplished craft. Was the album initially written to be a continuous piece?
I don’t really think of it as one piece of music- it’s still very much separate songs in the traditional sense. I guess we just think this is the most consistent record we’ve made because production-wise there is a thread running through the whole album.
What inspired you to make the album in Jura?
We’d always wanted to record somewhere quite remote and the history of Jura appealed to us. We also enjoy hillwalking so it was an opportunity for us to excersise our passions of hillwalking and playing synthesisers.
The album has no live drumming and hardly any live guitars, what made you decide to take this alternate approach to making music?
I guess we were listening to a lot less guitar and live drum music at the time and more synthesiser and drum machine music. We’d bought a lot of new equipment in the interval between records – old drum machines and some analog synths.
What was the inspiration behind the skeleton video for Slow Rotor?
It’s sort of a warning about how technology and social media (things that are designed to bring us closer together) are more often than not pulling us away from each other. I’m not trying to preach it anything, it’s just a subject I’m interested in. I guess the video director picked up on this and kind of ran wild with it.
You recently played in Japan, what was that like?
Pretty insane. It had been a dream of ours pretty much since we started the band. It was even more of a crazy experience than we could have imagined. Travelling on the bullet train was something I didn’t think I’d ever get to do.
Given you didn’t use as many live instruments on this album, is it hard to transfer the studio recordings to a live performance?
Yes, this time round was definitely the hardest. We don’t consider how songs will work live when we are recording. I think we worked out a good way that didn’t compromise any elements.
Do you ever listen to your own music?
Only during recording time and before the album is released. After that we tour and hear it every night and are beginning to think about new material so don’t tend to listen any more.
Now that the album is out what do you plan on doing next?
Some festivals over summer and some more touring later in the year and probably start a new record before the end of the year.
Check out Errors’ website to find out more!
