Features / Music

"I love Pavement, The Velvet Underground and The Go-Betweens – they’re my Holy Trinity."

"I know genres are a necessary evil, but I try to stay clear of them as much as possible. It’s all still acid house to me."

"I have been a huge Elliott Smith fan in my time... and that’s kind of what he does: have two identical parts but in two separate takes, over the top of each other. It adds quite a lot without adding too much."

"I think maybe we’d had a few songs on Pitchfork or something – it’s funny when that happens, you just notice a lot of young dudes [in the crowd] with their arms crossed, checking you out. Like, ‘Is this cool? Should I be here?’ I remember there were a lot of young guys there doing that."

“I don’t necessarily agree with this idea, but I feel it’s partly true, that electronic music has become attractive because it’s seen as more accessible than an artist with live instrumentation.”

"I don’t know if it will induce a riot, but definitely a circle pit is the goal... We just tried to make the best Bats record that we could, that was our vibe."

“To us, to headline at the Tote is just crazy, given it’s where we started and everything. The last few shows we’ve played there, we were really happy with our sound, which makes it the best place to play, in a way. We’re pretty excited to see what happens.”

"To be able to have different instrumentation like horns around it, and to not have every song blasting away really adds to the songwriting. No one really wants to listen to a record where each song sounds the same."

“We thought, ‘Let’s just make an album. Why goose around with a bunch of EPs and singles, lets just get to it!’”

Atlanta’s Cartel has had a fluctuating career yet they still hold strong. Brendan Telford talks to ringleader Will Pugh about keeping their eyes on the prize.

"I’d mostly like to collaborate with world music musicians like Mulatu Astatke and Djivan Gasparyan. In electronic there’s also a few… I’m working on it."