Imperial Wax have laid out plans for new album ‘Tranquiliser’.
The band were formed out of the ashes of The Fall, with guitarist Pete Greenway, drummer Keiron Melling and bassist Dave Spurr forming the crux of Mark E Smith’s legendary ensemble towards the final years of his life.
After Smith’s passing the trio were invited to be “sound carriers” by Damo Sazuki for a one-off performance, sparking Imperial Wax into life. Joined by singer Sam Curran from Leeds based Black Pudding, their second album ‘Tranquiliser’ will be released next year.
Out on February 9th, the record is trailed by new piledriver ‘Less I Need’; as guitarist and vocalist Sam Curran explains, it was the first song written for the record.
“The initial intention for the song was to simplify our writing format and concentrate more on one solid foundational groove and build upon that, rather than overloading the song with different parts, which in the end evidently went out the window. It was (drummer) Keiron’s idea to constantly change keys, which worked really well. It gave the song much more drive and purpose. The key changes were not planned out and probably technically incorrect to a trained musical ear. Wherever the hand landed on the guitar neck was where the key change went, which helped create that jarring unpredictable nature to the song.”
“The actual chorus and eventual title of the song came as a total accident. I couldn’t come up anything good for the chorus, so while playing song with the band I just sang gobbledygook whenever it got to that part. That gobbledygook eventually refined itself and started sounding like words but was never anything proper. When recording the demos and listening back someone asked ‘what do you say during the chorus? Is it less I need?’ I said, it is now.”
Tune in now.
