![]() KOKAL: If anything I think we connect to what our parents were listening to when they were our age. about our sound, apart from the fact that we live in the same city. I don’t think there’s anything particularly L.A. band anymore? I always see that and think it’s so archaic. But, like, what does it even mean to be an L.A. “Ethereal” and “Californian” are common adjectives… STEPHENSON: The press often focuses on the influence of L.A. The music comes from a universal place and to me, the new album doesn’t feel as emotionally heavy as it may to some. I never think of our songs as being about boy-girl relationships or ultra-female. ![]() We all feel we’re an emotional band as far as writing, but the specific emotions tend to be of a melancholic, or of an almost sinister-yet-beautiful nature. But what stimulates us are usually these dreamy minor chords. On the new record, the songs “Baby” and “Shadows” were written start to finish vocally before they were brought to the other members. KOKAL: I’ve tended to write lyrics alone, but the way we write in this band, when we’re jamming with everyone in the room, a lot of times the melodies tend to almost create the lyrics, they create syllables. We’ve talked about recording, but how did you approach the lyrics, and Emily, what is your writing process like? STEPHENSON: More so than on Exquisite Corpse, the vocals stood out as a major force on the new album. So, Stella ended up recording some of our vocals at a friend’s house. But then when we went to South by Southwest, he lost his studio. ![]() And the recording area was just one long room, this long white passage, and we tracked most of the songs there.ĮMILY KOKAL: We were really excited by how everything sounded there, Stella’s drums sounded amazing. The outdoor area in the back connected to a weird Mexican restaurant-slash-bar or something. There was still a lot of gear from others’ bands, and an accumulation of these goods. I guess even while we were recording there, it felt pretty novel. Originally, we recorded in his studio which was an old women’s fitness center called Coves, so he calls it Coves Studio. STELLA MOZGAWA: We did it with a producer fellow called Tom Biller (Liars, Beck). HUNTER STEPHENSON: Where did you record the new album? When we finished, bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg led them both single-file from the dressing room, singing Mariah Carey’s “Dream Lover” the entire way, until they were outside for a quick smoke. Shortly before they took the stage that evening, I had a few minutes to speak with Kokal and drummer Stella Mozgawa. But during the concert, when they performed the album’s highlight, “Composure,” in which the girls’ vocals are semi-shouted, a spectral tug-of-war of self-doubt bedded in shimmery guitar, the live version was beyond compare. On The Fool, the youthful vocals of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman occasionally blend while stirring up the eras of Stevie Nicks, Luscious Jackson, and Siouxie Sioux (credited as a guest mixer). (Not to figure out, as the band suggests below, the light from a joint.) It builds on the promise of Exquisite Corpse, their acclaimed 2008 EP mastered by John Frusciante, but is separated by a thematic and sonic darkness, a spectrum of wild emotion traversed with the lights off. The album, entitled The Fool, out October 25, is Warpaint’s first release since signing with Rough Trade last year. A collision of intimacy and power, the renditions of cuts off their debut album swirled through the proverbial art-school rafters into the grip of a mature and entrancing artistry. Earlier this month, when Warpaint opened for The xx at Washington Heights’ United Palace, an underused venue of dizzying gilded ceilings and eerie red church light, it proved the perfect setting to experience them in concert. ![]() The live performances by the group are consistently impressive. The music made by these four L.A.-based females is indicative of a West Coast “vibe”-or, if you will, a California spirit animal that ingested a dream pill. When the cursor moves across the board of recent press for Warpaint, it spells out the following. PHOTO COURTESY OF BEGGARS GROUP/MIA KIRBY. WARPAINT IS (L-R): EMILY KOKAL, JENNY LEE LINDBERG, STELLA MOZGAWA, AND THERESA WAYMAN.
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