Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2011

Off the plane and into a tightly scripted whirlwind of interviews, cab rides, soundchecks, gigs… and back on the plane. The routine for bands that tour Japan doesn’t leave much time for fun. But a determined few sacrifice sleep for a taste of the country.

“We played Summer Sonic in 2009, and had a wonderful time,” begins Milo Cordell of UK duo The Big Pink from outside a bar in the Dalston area of London. “We ended up in an S&M bar in Osaka, completely naked, being tied up by a Japanese bondage expert. A photographer came and took pictures of us with hot wax thrown all over us.”
Apparently The Big Pink are a band that doesn’t do half-measures. “We do go insane on tour,” Cordell admits. “Every city we turn up in we embrace that city and let ourselves get taken away to discover what it is about. After a while it drives you mad, but we’re like that in the studio anyway.”

After touring the world in 2009-10 following the release of their debut album A Brief History of Love and the phenomenal success of the single “Dominos,” the pair have now gone pedal-to-the-metal on their sophomore effort, whose songs they will debut in Japan next month.

“When we were writing, the Kanye record My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had just come out and it was a very influential album for us,” Cordell says about the just-released Future This. “We didn’t want to write an album based around normal indie music, so it is very much rooted in samples and hip-hop beats. It’s got all the emotion of a Big Pink record but done in a hip-hop way.”

After the breakup album that was A Brief History of Love and subsequent success, the new disc takes Big Pink’s indie synth-pop in an appropriately euphoric direction.

“For the first album, both of us had just come out of long-term relationships, so it was about the dangers of love,” Cordell explains. “This record is more about the excitement and enjoyment of life. It’s about friendship; self-realization and self-belief, and about being surrounded by the things that you love.”

The first single from the album, “Stay Gold,” waxes poetic about finding the things that make one happy, referencing Robert Frost’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” Another song, “Hit the Ground Superman,” is a feel-good number about “having a great night out in London surrounded by friends and drinking and laughing.”

So is it fair to say these budding pop stars are in a good place right now? “I’m not sure we are pop stars,” Cordell says modestly, “but for a song like ‘Dominos’—which was just written in our bedrooms­—to take on its own life and have Kanye blog about it and then Niki Minaj sample it, it was like, ‘ah fuck, we have made some kind of impact.’”

Formed in 2007 by programmer and vocalist Cordell—son of 1960s producer Denny Cordell and founder of the hip Merok label behind Crystal Castles—and guitarist/vocalist Robbie Furze, a veteran of Alec Empire’s band, the group didn’t take long to catch the ear of indie imprint 4AD.

Despite having a home on the hallowed offbeat label, The Big Pink’s sound fits pretty comfortably with the term “pop.” “We like music that takes influences from leftfield or noisy roots, but has a pop sensibility,” Cordell grants. “Someone like Talking Heads, they’re a weird band, but their music is essentially pop.

“I don’t know if we are one of those bands, but that is what we love,” he continues. “Radiohead are another great example of a band that makes pop music on their own terms. I don’t think we’re in that league, but those artists are our inspiration.”

“Look at someone like Deerhunter or Ariel Pink,” he adds about two other highly successful bands in the 4AD stable. “They are very much in their own world, but great songwriters. And if someone talks about us alongside them that is great—if we can leave a legacy like that it would be phenomenal.”

Unit, Dec 1 (listing).