Influences: Vessels

Leeds titans explore the sounds that inspire...

Vessels isn't so much a band as a convergence point for five very distinct voices.

Exploring entirely different musical climes, the Leeds outfit tend to coalesce around techno's future-driven electronic abstraction.

New album 'Dilate' arrives on April 1st, and it finds Vessels yet again going through a period of transformation. Peter Wright says:

"With hindsight, it now looks like it was always going to happen. If I think about all the countless festivals we’ve played and visited together as a band over the years, we’d all go off through the day to see different acts and experience different things, and then we’d reconvene later in the night at some form of dance music or another. We all listen to radically different music a lot of the time, but techno is still where we all converge."

Ahead of this, Clash invited Vessels to name a few Influences, a few of the touchstones that inspire them on their new record.

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Nathan Fake – 'The Sky Was Pink' (James Holden Remix)

This is a bit of an obvious one really for us – but hard to ignore. At various points in time different band members fell in love with this tune. Back when we definitely had our feet planted in post rock music, we started thinking about playing this tune as a band. Who came up with the idea first is still a bone of contention, but it was the beginning of something quite special when we started piece it together and play it out. It's been a staple of our live set for many years and it's got such an mix of melody, groove and vibe. It also feels like the perfect mid way point between what we used to be and what we are now.

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Explosions In The Sky – 'Greet Death'

Back in the early pre-Vessels days, we used to listen to this album and band all the time. I definitely remember it being on various stereos back in 2002 They definitely had a huge influence on our post-rock past (along with plenty of others) and you can still hear elements of the texture and arrangements of our music today. I remember they played with Four Tet at the Brudenell Social Club in 2005 when and it was a pretty monumental show…

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Caribou – 'Niobe'

This band has managed to evolve over the years so much, yet almost seamlessly, and this tune was where they really started to show the beginnings of how they would later become the perfect combo of live band and electronics. It has a lot of the vibe of early 2000s and Ibiza about it, but is still organic and fresh.

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Jon Hopkins – 'Open Eye Signal'

Belter of tune, where not that much happens but where there's just enough movement and change to keep you mesmerised for the entire time. Such as groove and with nicely organic percussive stuff going on. This one was on repeat for a very long time in the van…

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Vitalic – 'Poney Part One'

Not too sure about his more recent output but the 'OK Cowboy' album made a really big impression back in 2005. Full of big tunes with balls, great melodies and probably skirting pretty close to the cheese line but usually on the right side of it. Definitely remember this one get played out at plenty of parties around that time. Quite interesting how we also ended up on Different Recordings – the label that put out 'OK Cowboy' over ten years ago. I bet if you'd have told me that would happen back in 2005, I would not have believed you.

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'Dilate' will be released on April 1st.

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