← all Middle 8 videos
7:05 · 1,188 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- The setup is a band stuck. After three albums The Strokes could not agree on a direction, Angles came out disjointed from the infighting, and Comedown Machine arrived with the band refusing to tour or promote it.
▶ 00:00:19
- The Voidz assembled out of a touring accident. Casablancas hired the live band Sick Six to support his solo record, then kept their keyboardist and drummer plus a mutual friend.
▶ 00:00:59
- The group's actual first job was a track for a French fashion campaign that was never finished, and he liked working with them enough to build a band around it.
▶ 00:00:59
- Casablancas had wanted to push The Strokes somewhere stranger since their third record, and deliberately suppressed that instinct on his solo debut so as not to lose listeners.
▶ 00:01:47
- Tyranny is where nothing is held back, experimental and noisy, arranged chaos that takes several listens before it resolves.
▶ 00:02:06
- Human Sadness is the centrepiece, an eleven-minute piece moving through noise rock and bubbling synths into a guitar solo in its bridge.
▶ 00:02:06
- Father Electricity runs Afrobeat rhythms through the band's own distortion, which is the clearest single example of their method.
▶ 00:02:28
- Virtue is the recommended way in, brighter and more varied, 15 tracks that merge garage rock, alternative dance, neo psych, synth punk, glam metal and R&B without a weak one.
▶ 00:04:07
- Later singles include two co-produced by Mac DeMarco, which push the band toward bouncier, more pop-leaning writing while staying strange.
▶ 00:05:31
- The conclusion is that the side project saved the main one: having somewhere to put his odd ideas is what let Casablancas come back and make The New Abnormal with his old friends.
▶ 00:05:54