Danceable, straightforward, minimal & perfect: "Life is a thing" by Scenius (Their new album #outthisFriday)

Scenius

...are part of a fresh synthesizer reawakening. Following their acclaimed 2020 debut, Enough Fears, they embarked upon a scattering of select live shows. This post-lockdown proximity afforded the duo a heightened mutual awareness and appreciation. The closer collaboration bore fruit in the form of Life Is A Thing, a pristine set of contemporary compositions. 

Whilst their debut dazzled, Scenius cast a wider emotive net on this new release, doubling down on heart and soul. The new long-player sets out to delight and subvert in equal measure. Alienated vocals are backed by dark, sensual grooves - basslines thrum, those vintage synths throb and the listener will sway to its glorious tuneage.

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Diesen Freitag ist es soweit, Scenius werden ihr neues "Ding" raushauen, sprich ihr neues Album "Life is a thing" veröffentlichen. Neben den bereits erschienen Single-Releases "Chinese Room" und "High Low" erwarten den Hörer vor allem dunkle Grooves in denen man beinahe zu versinken droht, während beeindruckende Synth-Melodien einen Hauch von 80er versprühen. 

Neben den bekannten Songs, überzeugten mich besonders "Moon Fall", "Escalation" und "Hot Dust", wobei die übrigen Track den genannten kaum nachstehen. "Life is a thing" ist definitiv ein Album, welches man von Anfang bis Ende durchhört, ohne einen Song zu überspringen.  

Nachfolgend gibt's noch ein kurzes Interview, welches euch mehr über das Album und die Künstler verrät. 

Q&A

"Chinese Room", a great successor of "High Low", sounds impressive and a bit darker as usual, what's the story behind the song?

Steve: I think there’s a dark undercurrent in most of our songs, even the happier ones. Maybe this just has a little more darkness in it than a lot of them. We like strong melodies, married with strange sounds and darkness, but this one is dance-able as well.

Fab: The lyrics refer to a thought experiment that was imagined by John Searle, a philosopher, in 1980. His purpose was to show that however sensitive / human-like a computer intelligence may sound like, it would be a mistake to think that it proves that it does have a mind and has feelings. 

Artificial Intelligence can only collect information and re-arrange it in a way that is statistically correct. But there isn’t something, a feeling, that exists before and separately from the phrases it produces. So in the song, the line ‘I’ve been sending all my love from a Chinese Room’ casts doubt on whether there have really been any feelings involved.

Also it's the first single of the new album "Life is a thing", what can we expect from it?

Fab: This new album is mostly exploring the same musical landscapes as our debut album, with a more straightforward approach and an often more minimal one too.

How long did you work on the album and what song caused the most "troubles”?

Steve: I started work on writing new music as soon as the first album was released and the last music to be written was ‘A Million To Go.’ Chinese Room took a lot of rearranging after Fabrice had written the lyrics, but no track really stands out as causing a lot of trouble.

It did take me half a day to get the bass sound right on my MS20 for ‘La Meme Nuit’! I knew what I wanted but it took a while to get it. Like the first album it was a fairly painless process, maybe the next one will be the difficult 3rd album!

What three songs from the album would you recommend to our readers?

Fab: ‘Life is a Thing Again', 'Chinese Room' and for a laid back one 'Hindsight'

New Album means gigs, or in other words do we have the chance to see you on stage with your new tracks?

Steve: We are currently arranging gigs for later in the year, so if there’s any promoters reading this please get in touch. The very first gig we did last year, in Angers, France, was filmed and recorded and it’s up on YouTube. https://youtu.be/NBNYVMMiPJ4

Finally, what comes next?

Fab: Apart from arranging gigs and we’ve already started writing new songs for the next album!

Photo credits: Kieron Brennan, Jack Life, Fred Bellanger