Paralysed & Little Bird were the sound of a band trying to find their feet, pushing at two different directions to see what stuck. Some might call it the difficult second record, but we look upon it with a lot of affection. ‘Paralysed’ is a bundle of unbridled fun: piano-led house inspired as much by New York as Paris, tongue-in-cheek vocal lines, tight funk guitar. It’s bright, breezy and pretty sleazy.
Given its colourful feel, the track lent itself to a headier, darker remix. We couldn’t have hoped for a better team to help us out. The story goes that Tuff City Kids (Gerd Janson of Running Back and Philip Lauer were in the studio with Mark Barrott working together on the Talamanca System album when our demo slipped into Marks’ inbox.
Gerd apparently loved it so much he agreed to do the remix there and then. Whether that’s true or not, Gerd and Philip propelled that record into a deeper, hedonistic directions. It was a staple at Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston’s iconic A Love from Outer Space party in the final months of 2015 and I heard it played out at Panorama Bar once, so it’s been round the block and had the stamp of legitimacy from some DJ royalty.
On the flipside is ‘Little Bird’, which pushes at something a little different. We had ‘Balearic anthem’ in mind: bird noises, sax, guitar, a ‘take me higher’ refrain. Neon Indian loves it (we’ve got the video evidence to prove it) Others don’t: Rob Harris (Dr Rob) who was writing for ‘the’ Balearic blog, Test Pressing at the time fucking hated it. Marmite music clearly.