Following the critically acclaimed albums Miss World and A French Connection, Alberteen now prepare to share new single The Son’s Room, out now via Rhythm and Noir Recordings.
The Son’s Room is a poignant reflection on memory and loss, inspired by lead singer Phil Shaw’s childhood and his relationship with his father. This is first time the band have not included a guitar part, enabling the song to be propelled by funky beats and soaring synths, as thought provoking lyrical storytelling flows. Fusing together folk-inspired musicality with a sweeping electronic soundscape, The Son’s Room builds rich sonic layers to create a quirky slice of alt-pop, sounding akin to Field Music or Steve Mason.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with Alberteen about motivations, challenges, the latest project and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
Updating our collection and rejecting nostalgia. Putting down our guitars and picking up 70s analogue synths, flutes and clarinets. It was liberating. Embracing minimalist female-led electro-pop helped us too
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
It’s still about the songs, the tunes, but as we get older we realised we were starting to sound too much like the sum of our old influences and we want to be relevant and fresh. Nothing worse than getting stuck in the past. We’re not kids any more but the lines are blurred nowadays and age matters not. But we go and see so much new music and we can’t expect anyone to come and see us if we don’t practice what we preach
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
See above really. But also our newer members Gareth and Julia basically said ‘f*** indie’ and the other three followed suit. So where once we would listen to the same old artists, now it’s about finding new and exciting sounds, more minimalist. The guitars will come back I’m sure. But for now we love this sound. It’s much more free
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
A re-invention whilst still embracing the craft of songwriting. And Phil’s lyrics are still growing – little epic poems that create so much imagery in the brain. We’re never going to release a tuneless 18 minute noise-core track, we don’t think. Actually, maybe that’s not such a bad idea.
What was the last song you listened to?
Franz Ferdinand ‘Feel the Love Go’, followed by Karen O and Michael Kiwanuka ‘Yo! My Saint’
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl first, streaming for on the go
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Spotify, despite all the Thom Yorkes of the world moaning. As a multi-millionaire who plays gigs in Israel he can afford to complain. But Spotify is democratic and accessible. It’s changed the way we access artists and their music, whenever we want, wherever we want
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
Getting people to gigs is always hard. Finding a different way to communicate to fans beyond the same platforms too. Too much armchair participation…
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
We’re only just getting started…
