Dancing on the boundary between acoustic and synthetic, Common Tongues use intricate harmonies, searing violins & bubbling electronics to create absorbing live experiences and records that reveal immersive arrangements and lyrical themes of conflict, decline and rebirth.

In this interview spotlight, we chat with Common Tongues about the newest project, influences, navigating the digital music world and much more.

Full Q&A along with links and streams below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

We all grew up in different corners of the country but all met down here in Brighton. Me (Tom) and Oli grew up in Cambridge, so we had started writing some music back there but after hearing how creative Brighton was we decided to both move down and try start a band.

I’d say we take influence from a real mixture of different genres. It draws from all the different things we listen to. You will find elements of folk as we do a lot of writing on acoustic instruments and that’s kind of how the band originated, but then we might add some really aggressive electronic stuff. We are all big admirers of vocal harmony so that tends to dictate a lot of the melody but then also have a real soft spot for the sonics and sounds of prog rock so we tend to try incorporate that all. If I had to akin us to someone I would say we are a heavier version of Fleet Foxes, dabbled with a bit of Pink Floyd for good measure.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?

We all have such a love for music down here its hard to imagine working as hard at anything else in life. In Brighton especially there is such a close knit group of musicians its almost like a big family.
Everyone supports each other. We all play together and play on each others records so its easy to stay on course. Seeing so much creativity around you is also a great way to stay motivated and better yourself .

With the whole idea of a musical family in mind we recently started a record label with our good friends ‘Time for T called Last Train Records. It hopefully captures the feeling that we are all a community of musicians doing what we love and we should put a name to that and release our music under the same umbrella.

How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?

We wanted to come back with something grittier than our previous E.P ‘Tether and Twine’. We knew our live sound was a lot heavier than what came across on the record so it was important to capture that with our latest album ‘Divisions’.

It was all a pretty natural process tho, and not something we necessarily set out to change. The music and the sound was naturally evolving as we started to experiment more. We traded the acoustics for electrics and started processing Andrew’s violin until we were coming up with things that sounded quite mad really.

Do you face challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? How has technology helped you (assuming it helps)?

The musician in the digital age faces so many challenges its hard to list them all.

I’d say the change in the way people are consuming music is the biggest factor tho. Declining physical record sales means you really have to be nailing your live shows as thats where your going to earn your living.

Its also pretty hard to make a living from your shows here (U.K) which isn’t really the case in Europe. The emphasis is more on making money on the bar than paying people for their art. A lot of people expect to pay nothing for the music they listen too or see, and with so much of it available digitally your going to need to get a lot of streams to equate to what selling one album at a show generates.

That said, it has never been easier to record your own music and its pretty straightforward to put it out to all four corners of the globe, so as an independent artist thats got to be a plus. The sheer quantity of new music out there is both amazing and terrifying, so you need to find a way to stand out from everything else.

Where can we connect with you online and discover more music?

Our debut album ‘Divisions’ is out now on Spotify and Apple music so everyone can stream it in its entirety here.

You can keep up to date with all our goings on via Facebook or our website
www.commontongues.co.uk

Anything else before we sign off?

Check out our new record label Last Train Records. We got some exciting releases planned for this year and feel its the start of something a bit special.