I like the idea of an album as world or a landscape that you enter, or that surrounds you. Can you picture what that space looks like? Are there any colors?

EVE: There’s a tropical element inherently, so maybe like… light blue?

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HUGO: Some of the sonic elements are sort of cold or harsh in a way that clashes with that. There are sounds in there that are futuristic. There are certain samples that are idiomatic of hip-hop or contemporary electronic music that don’t necessarily evoke tropical imagery in the way some of the guitar sounds — which are like steel drums — do. I don’t think it would be accurate to say it’s a sunny-sounding record; I think there’s an equal force that’s the opposite of that.

Wait — the steel drum sound is coming from the guitar? That’s so cool.

KASRA: Every sound you hear is almost always gonna be coming from the guitar, or, in a couple exceptions, from a sample that’s been overlaid after. But it’s almost all guitar-based. There’s no keyboard on the record.

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Are you guys good with techy stuff?

KASRA: None of us are very techy.

EVE: It’s super simple technology. Kasra also has this plastic pedal board from eBay or whatever, that triggers sounds.

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KASRA: It’s from the ’80s. It’s like a synthesizer. It’s fairly simple.

HUGO: We’re not a band that would have computers on stage. But there was some computer-y editing stuff that had to happen.

EVE: We’re definitely not a technical band. A lot of people think that we are, that we’ve all gone to music school or something. I don’t know if we’ve brought it on ourselves. But at the core of it we’re very much a regular band. We practice a lot and write weird parts For me, it’s all based on the feel.

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KASRA: We’re all curious, adventurous listeners. There’s always been an unwritten rule in our band that there are no rules. Nothing’s off-limits. We’re always trying to do something different. We’ve been playing together for so long, that you wanna do something that’s gonna be creatively stimulating for the other members as well. It’s not like we’re trying to impress each other, it’s us trying something new because we’re gonna get bored if we keep doing the same thing.

HUGO: We never had a conversation about the kind of band we wanted to be, which is a totally normal thing for a band to do when they get together.

EVE: We came together having some musical influences in common, but not really knowing what we were capable of making.

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HUGO: The first time I ever met Eve was the first band practice we ever had, for example. It’s not like we had preconceived notions about what kind of musicians we were, or what our aspirations were as individuals creatively. This maybe doesn’t pertain to everyone, because the three of them were friends before. But my getting to know the other three was through writing and playing the music. The conversation about the kind of music we want to make has been this conversation that’s been going on for the entirety of…

EVE: Our band is that conversation.

KASRA: I think people assume more intentionality than there actually is in our band. I’m sure this is true for a lot of bands, but it just like, happens. Because there’s not just one songwriter and there’s not a hierarchy, it’s kind of impossible to maintain a cohesive vision. There’s no control over what happens, in a way.