Human Repetition

Although he’s still making appearances at the hottest events in Europe and finding himself inside “flame-throwing, giant mechanical [spiders]” (in front of 70,000 at Glasto no less), Orlando Higginbottom is currently in a period of downtime.

On a break from the “crazy” schedule that followed his breakout 2012 Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs debut Trouble, the Oxford lad is right now at the heart of a follow-up record, playing sporadic DJ sets as a way to get out of the studio.

The 28-year-old won’t be touring his “precious and special” live show when he visits for Listen Out, but he does promise to try and wear some nice clothes for us, “and if I get my hands on some confetti I’ll let it off”.

“There are people who do bangers a lot better than me, but that’s not my goal."

He also confirms that he’ll be putting in some studio time locally, though he refrains from telling us who he’ll be working with, leaving us to linger with the intrigue.

“You work with people and sometimes it turns into something, sometimes it doesn’t,” Higginbottom shrugs. “But I’ve got some great friends down in Australia. I’m going to be getting stuck into whatever is going on in Sydney and Melbourne.”

However, Higginbottom will admit that he’s going for a “bigger” sound with his next record, though he uses the descriptor a little differently than we probably would. “When I say bigger I’m talking about wider, I’m talking about more widescreen, more epic. Not necessarily in the sense of banging,” he laughs. “There are people who do bangers a lot better than me, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to write a great song.
“I wouldn’t say it’s any harder in electronic music than playing in a band to make an album,” Higginbottom reasons. “You have to be quite [brave], your material has to be flowing the right way and then it’s a possibility, but it’s difficult for everybody to put together nine or ten tracks, and have it really work as a whole. You’re giving something to people and obviously this has taken me two years to make so please sit down for an hour-and-a-half and listen to it.”

His individual success has also made his father, Edward – a choral professor and musical director at the University of Oxford – very proud.
“I am his only experience of anything clubby and electronic; he doesn’t know anything about it,” Higginbottom chuckles. “But I grew up making music with my dad so he knows [and likes who I am] as a musician. He trusts that what I do is half-decent – he’s always very complimentary – but he always says, ‘Why does it have to repeat so much?’ And I think he’s got a good point.”