Friendly Fires are back with the help of The Asphodells on their brand new collaborative project. The plan was to produce music that came from a place outside of their respective usual musical styles. A loose, open-ended process embarked upon for the pure joy of experimentation and collaboration rather than a specific end goal. The result is ‘Before Your Eyes’ and ‘Velo’ – two brand new tracks that take close to ten minutes each to reveal their full hypnotic glory. The collaboration will see the release of these two songs on March 31 on 12″ and will be the inaugural release on Friendly Fires’ own Telophase label.
Recorded between Weatherall’s Shoreditch studio and that of Friendly Fires frontman Ed Macfarlane’s basement studio in Farringdon, the 12″ marks the first new music fans have heard from the band since they released second album Pala in 2011. The Asphodells released their debut album Ruled By Passion Destroyed By Lust in 2013.
A collaboration with Weatherall was first teased by Macfarlane as far back as 2012, when he claimed that Friendly Fires have no intentions of writing another pop record like Pala. Speaking backstage at that year’s Open’er festival, he said: “The music – the way we’re writing and the style of it – is very different to anything we’ve done before; I think we’re still learning to write music in a different way. We want to write something long and expansive and drawn-out and, I suppose, a bit more psychedelic.”
‘Before Your Eyes’ is summer, in a beautifully produced near 8 minute package. Ed Macfarlane’s trademark echoing vocals perch on the top of a steady, rhythmic bed that is like neither of the bands’ previous work. Imagine being sprawled on a lush green lawn on a scorching summer’s day, this would be the perfect soundtrack.
You can listen to the track here.
