I wanted to focus on harmony, melody and a message.” The second album for me was a little paper-thin it didn’t warm my soul in the way moments on the first do. “I made a concerted effort to bring it closer to the first record, to turn the drums down and the music up. “I’m really happy with the new record,” he says. Littlemore, who writes all the lyrics, says his artistic process is “picking out colours from the sky.” “Alice D you’re on your way up,” sings Steele though it sounds like “LSD”. In the video for High and Low, Littlemore appears momentarily as a many-armed Indian god before the clip segues into a sequence that looks a lot like the Honda ad. On some tracks Steele’s voice is robotic with autotune and in photos the duo has retreated even further into airbrushed artificiality. Musically, it is neither strange nor new: shimmery and trebly with beats that flutter and pulse instead of pound. On Two Vines, Empire of the Sun return to the form of their first album, continuing their voyage out to strange new worlds. How to rectify a lacklustre second album? Make the third blindingly bright. Lindsey was allegedly a fan, which I still don’t believe, but he came down with his son to the studio and it was very natural and so wonderful.” Special guests on the record include Henry Hey and Tim Lefebvre from David Bowie’s Blackstar band, Wendy Melvoin from Prince’s Purple Rain-era Revolution band, and Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. I know fans will be like, ‘fuck you, you don’t tour, you let us down’ but it was never my intention to tour. “I don’t want to be away from my wife and my life. Littlemore won’t be joining him – he never has. In December, Steele will don the duo’s outlandish costumes and begin touring. I was expecting some more nasty journalists on this trip and everyone’s been really wonderful, so I think if you’re putting out a positive message, it’s hard for people to call you nasty names.”īoth Littlemore and singer Luke Steele are based in Los Angeles. I had a bit of that ‘tall poppy’ thing when I was 20, 21. “I find it sad that still permeates the culture. “In the States, people thrive on positivity,” he says. You suspect he really does believe his band’s success is the result of happy thoughts in bottles. Conversation circles pleasantly but persistently back to his favoured topics of nature, hallucinogens, dream states and plant wisdom. His manner is calm and open, verging on guileless. Littlemore’s hair is silver now but his face is childlike. “I do believe if you put a positive thought into the universe it’ll come back around, a bit like a message in a bottle.” We’ve been very fortunate … songs don’t often come back around.” He pauses. The radio started playing it because people started requesting it. “It changed America to us,” says Littlemore.
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