Fat Freddy's Drop

Fat Freddy's Drop broke onto the world stage in 2006 with their debut studio album Based on a True Story. They won acclaim for their soulful, jazzed-up sound and rambling jams. Three years later and their next album, Dr Boondigga and the Big BW, was finally been released. So what took them so long? "It's a common question," admits keyboardist Dobie Blaze. "It's just the way we work, we don't rush anything."

Not hard to believe, when one listens to the superchilled Kiwi dub they produce. But it's also a matter of their composition process. All the songs start in the studio with a bass loop, melody or beat on an Akai MPC (a drum machine used for sampling) over which the band jams. The jam is recorded, played back, the good bits are picked out and a song starts to develop. Once the skeleton has been tacked together they take it out of the studio and start playing it live, and over months and years the song evolves. Only then do they take it back into the studio, strip it back and record it.

This organic process is evident both on their album (most tracks total eight or nine minutes) and in their live performances. "We always leave room for improv. Some songs might have a tight structure for five or ten minutes but from there we'll go anywhere with it. And hopefully it will be different every night." The process allows all seven members of the band to be creatively involved and bring their various influences to the mix, including indie folk singers. "I've been listening to Bon Iver and it comes through in those thick guitar and keyboard layers, and subtle melodic changes within a single chord."

Fans will also note the heavier, dancier sound on parts of the new album, with booty-shaking basslines and uptempo dance rhythms on tracks like Shiverman. Blaze puts this down to the success they've had since the last album. "Our music is heavily influenced by what we develop live. We've been playing bigger venues with bigger crowds, so the sound is getting bigger and heavier and geared more towards making people dance." Sarah Theeboom

Fat Freddy's Drop launch Live At The Roundhouse London at the Enmore