Foundations: ALASKALASKA

ALASKALASKA are in a perpetual state of evolution. The group’s music has a nervous quality, flitting from idea to idea, remaining tethered only to the relationship that fuels the project.

Coming up through the adjacent jazz and post-punk scenes at the Brixton Windmill, ALASKALASKA have moved forwards, embracing electronics and skirting with the outer fringes of pop.

New album ‘Still Life’ is out now, a terrific move from the 6Music favourites and trailed by quietly addictive singles like ‘TV Dinners’, ‘Still Life’ and ‘Glass’.

Recently supporting Porridge Radio, ALASKALASKA – in reality, Lucinda Duarte-Holman and Fraser Rieley – tackle concerns about technology, social media, and climate change all within a remarkable, free-flowing sonic mosaic.

technology, social media and climate change. 

6Music favourites

Clash caught up with ALASKALASKA to discuss their Foundations – the group’s musical bedrock, the albums that truly made a difference to their lives.

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Talking Heads – ‘Stop Making Sense’ (1984)

Cheating a bit here, because I watched the live show on video with my dad way before I listened to this as a record, when I was about 12. I had no idea who David Byrne was, but I was just starting to learn the guitar and getting interested in bands, or thinking about starting my own.

The heavily afrobeat-inspired rhythms, frantic on-stage energy, band arrangements and choreography were overwhelming – baffling and inspiring to me. I was obsessed and watched it over and over but it wasn’t until my late teens that those component parts and songs all started to make sense to me as a musician, hearing the tracks again with a broader knowledge of its context and deeper appreciation for the work and talent that must have gone in to it.

It made me realise that pop music could be an art form, yet it’s still ridiculous and over the top, and seeing a man throwing himself around in a giant suit seemed so liberating.

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Tracy Chapman – ‘Tracy Chapman’ (1988)

This got played on cassette in my parent’s car pretty much constantly. It was the first record I learned all the words to, singing along on the back seat on long drives. I sang ‘Baby Can I Hold You’ in a primary school show & tell (weird?), which would have been the first time I ever deliberately performed in front of people and made me realise how much I loved music, and singing.

The album is full of important but heavy themes, and at that age I was blissfully unaware of it’s political, cultural and humanitarian poignancy, though I knew the words were serious and powerful. I think the simplicity and clarity of the songwriting and musical arrangements stuck with me and no doubt had an affect on me when I started trying to write songs of my own a couple of years later.

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Radiohead – ‘Kid A’ (2000)

This is another album I heard at a young age, maybe eight or nine, along with the follow up/sister album ‘Amnesiac’ (2001). I had no idea what I was hearing or who was doing it, just that it was a bit like scary futuristic film music with crazy singing. I remember different songs feeling really warm or really cold, like the intro chords on ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ or the drums and synths on ‘Idioteque’.

I think it’s such an important album for pop, rock and electronic music – way ahead of its time in terms of production and songwriting, fusion of 90s alt electronic and computer music, sound design, analog and fm synthesis, plus lyrical predictions of a climate crisis years before it was discussed as a mainstream issue.

It’s also insane that a band with so much success from their previous record would take the risk on making something that would confuse many of their existing fans in favour of exploring a new direction. Plus, learning and embracing different ways of writing and making music, for an album that no one was asking for, but bringing electronica and ambient music in to the mainstream pop/rock world.

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Mr. Fingers – ‘Amnesia’ (1989)

Until my 20s I was pretty much solely interested guitar music, a bit of jazz, and eventually film soundtracks, but hearing ‘Amnesia’ for the first time opened the door to dance music for me.

I childishly thought that drum machines and synthesisers were just for nerds and people who couldn’t be bothered to learn a “real” instrument, but this record made me start to appreciate the craft of repetition, creating tension and drama by just removing and adding one or two rhythms or textures.

Wherever you’re listening to it, Larry Heard’s treatment of the simple 303 or Juno 6 bass-lines and Roland 707 grooves make each track constantly interesting and warm and addictive, and it made me want to get a synth and a drum machine and put down the guitar for a while.

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Adult Jazz – ‘Gist Is’ (2014)

When Lu and I first started showing each other our songs and writing music together a few years after university, I can remember her showing me this album when I played her something I was working on. It got played a lot by me that year, and still does now. You can hear that it’s recorded crudely in someone’s house, but it’s tender and playful and sad and joyful all at once.

I love Harry Burgess’ voice and intonation and choice of melodies, as well as the glitchy grooves, jarring horn parts and creative guitar lines. They’re an underrated band, and I think it’s a brave self-released album, but it’s important to me as it reminds me of the early ALASKALASKA days of writing and putting a band together and thinking about how we’d approach recording our own music for the first time, and treating it as a sort of art project rather than just a band.

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‘Still Life’ is out now.

Photo Credit: Tami Aftab