In Time

A new Seekae album always seems like a risky proposition. The trio's 2008 debut The Sound Of Trees Falling On People was such a warm and spontaneous release. It sounded like an ambitious work of random chance. When follow-up +Dome actually arrived in 2011, it was only after years of false starts and shifts in direction.

“We try to do something new each time. When we find we're doing the same thing again and again, progress seems to slow and creativity gets stifled,” founding member John Hassell says. “From a technical point of view, we consider our earlier albums obsolete. There are just so many ways we could improve on them.”

The band are currently putting the finishing touches on their as-yet-untitled third album, due for release early next year. Again, it's taken a while to piece together; surprisingly, it's actually been a slicker process. In spite of the difficulties of the band implementing vocals for the first time, they've had an easier time with the new material.

“Well, it feels natural when we're doing something new. Working with vocals, it represents an obstacle to us – but it also excites us and makes us want to keep writing and working on the material,” Hassell says of the record. “I think adding a new element to it has been a good catalyst, in a way.

“There was a long period before we started work on it. We wanted to do something new and we weren't really sure how that was going to happen,” the producer says. “It's not like we ever thought about canning Seekae, though. We were just waiting for inspiration to come along and push us in the right direction.”

Aside from that it includes vocals, little is known about the release. The band revealed a production called Yech as part of Vivid 2012. Glacial and soulful, it suggested the band were moving away from both the lo-fi electronica of their debut and the Warp-sponsored abstraction of their follow-up to pursue James Blake- and Burial-esque post-dubstep.

Previous interviews have also seen the band make reference to recording string arrangements. For every song. Except, in classic Seekae fashion, they may not actually make it to the final cut. In fact, Yech may not even warrant inclusion. Hassell sounds almost apologetic.

“It's not even going to be on the album, to be honest,” he says with a sheepish laugh. “That was just a demo track. It was our first foray into singing and since then we've written a lot more tracks and gotten a lot more sophisticated with it. We've taken it far, far beyond what we were expecting.

“A year ago, we had this idea of incorporating woodwind, strings and brass and we went through that process. We recorded a load of session musicians and got them to lay down a take on everything we had; but, since then, we've found that it works a lot better when we strip things back. Again, things didn't turn out as we expected.”