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Dec 07, 2016 Red Love By Charles Steinberg

There’s a new dynamic duo on the horizon in 2017. Matt Tong of Bloc Party and Algiers and Alex Newport, producer of Bloc Party, Mars Volta, Weaves and At The Drive In, have linked up to form Red Love. Their self-titled debut album is set for release on February 3rd. Under the Radar has their new video for the single, “Does It Make You.”

Vocals glide in concert with a drum track that drives hard, cyclical and incessant. The Krautrocking track rides along with old, degraded video footage of race cars. Tong and Newport gave us some insight on how they came together and how their aesthetic aim took shape. About the song and making of its video, Newport describes: “It’s sort of about the idea that with the overwhelming amount of graphics and music we all see on a daily basis, piped into our social media…we all suffer from that short attention span now and it’s difficult to be really moved by anything.” (Hence the refrain, “Does it make you feel..anything at all?”) “The potential of art and music is so powerful and I hate the idea that so much of it is just reduced to sound bytes that wash over everyone…It’s definitely got that ‘motorik’ psyched-out vibe but we also tried to fit it into a pop format structurally. We sort of tried to bridge the gap between Krautrock and the Beatles, ha.”

Tong created the video and adds: “I was finding all of this archival footage of motor racing online that you simply couldn’t source five years ago. It’s been interesting thinking about the visual reality of events that I’d previously only ever read about, and the murky gap in-between, where the imagination compensates in lieu of the actual experience. I wanted to reflect that somehow in the video. I also liked some of the VHS glitches where this footage had been transferred over to digital and I wanted to see if I could form some kind of rhythm with them to compliment the music.”

On forming the band, Newport recalls: “I met Matt whilst working with Bloc Party, producing their album FOUR and we became great friends. After years of producing other bands, I had started to get back into writing and playing again. I had amassed a bunch of songs and was thinking about starting a project or band, so I instantly thought of working with Matt because of his incredible level of musicianship and ideas.” Adds Tong: “I was a little bit stumped after I left Bloc Party so I was delighted when Alex asked me to collaborate with him. I’m a big fan of his methodical and disciplined approach. Alex puts a lot of onus on song structures, instrumentation and tempos and I find that very freeing because it creates a sound footing on which to mess around with all the intangibles that can combine to elevate a song.” If this track and video are any indication, there are some more thrilling rides in store from Red Love.