Blending literate rock and dynamic dance music into something epic and awesome is practically a Mancunian tradition and it doesn’t take a psychic to see that the latest masters of this dark art, Delphic, are heading for stadium-filling über-fame. The Manchester trio channel their hometown's illustrious musical heritage and enough future pizazz into songs that are ready to incite frenzied and emotional fist-pumping on a massive scale. We’ve got an exclusive premiere of the thrilling Parallels remix of the new Delphic single "This Momentary," which is sure to have you thrusting a lighter/your phone skywards and wondering where you can score some ecstasy. I chatted to the band about the north and raves and Chernobyl. Delphic, being serious-minded and mysterious dudes, replied to my questions as an amorphous, hive-mind whole.
Download: Delphic, "This Momentary" (Parallels Remix)
Do you still put on raves?
When we first started to play live, we were rehearsing downstairs at Night And Day, a venue in Manchester. Every now and again we'd turn up and open the doors: impromptu rave number one. We're currently looking at warehouses for a special Manchester show later in the year. The sound system we used to carry has been updated so we're looking forward to it. And now we have lights.
A lot of people are calling you guys Manchester’s next great band. What's special about the city’s relationship with music?
If you live and make music in the city, it is impossible not to be aware of, or in some way influenced by, Manchester’s musical heritage. The city is proud of its past and rightly so, but it has to look to the future. We recently played with Doves, which was great for us, because they are possibly the last great band to emerge from the city. We'd like to think we can be the next, but to be honest we're just trying to make great music regardless of where we come from because otherwise what's the point? Having said that, it's great to be from a city that thrives upon people that make things happen, it'd be remiss to say that we didn't value the unique spirit, support and encouragement of our hometown enormously.
How did you hook up with your producer Ewan Pearson?
We've always been fans of what Ewan does so we were pleased to be introduced to him by the team at R&S Records who released our first single "Counterpoint." He heard our demos and liked them so we met up with him and got on really well. We'd tried recording with a few different people but something didn't quite feel right until we got into the studio with Ewan and his engineer Bruno. Any sort of collaborating can be really difficult, but with Ewan it's been a pleasure more often than not, and that's really rare. He's got a great way of dealing with us and works really hard. Most of all he gets us and shared our vision for the record. We're really excited about what we've done together. It feels good.
Tell us about the album.
We recorded the album in a few different places. Most of it was divided between Ewan's studio in Berlin, Rockfield in Wales and also at Fisher Lane in Surrey. We found we worked better in the countryside, which provides a nice juxtaposition for all the grid-sapping electronic over-activity in the studio. The album is very reactionary, a reflex action to our perception of the music scene and culture we live in. It's looking for something more. We tried to make an optimistic album, but being from Manchester there's always the risk of melancholy creeping in there. Our biggest challenge was making a record that all three members of the band liked. We're all pretty exacting and everything has to go through the Delphic machine before it makes it to the studio, so that means a lot of discussion, electronic and verbal sparring until we reach a verdict. We got there in the end. I think.
Your new video was filmed in Chernobyl. How did that come about?
We originally wanted to take inspiration for the video from the title of the song and its main lyric, "let’s do something real." When we do videos we like to take a very basic idea to directors and let them expand on it, trusting the director and giving them as much creative freedom as possible. With "This Momentary," we asked Dave Ma to write a treatment with the basic idea of a series of moments, no actors, no band, trying to keep it as real as possible. We liked Dave a lot as a director, Ewan had shown us his video for Lost Valentinos' "Serio" which we thought was fantastic, and we knew his work with Foals. We were immediately excited when we read the Chernobyl treatment. We asked him to make it, and couldn't be happier with the results. Dave has created a video that works with and enhances the song, and we're really proud of it.
You're named after a famous oracle. Predict something for us.
We foresee the end of Manchester being seen as the baggy loudmouth, or at least that's what we hope to see.