The Return of Sky Larkin: “It’s Like A Birthday In Reverse”

Your typically brilliant new album is out this week - what's the vibe in the camp?

KATIE: Still mild disbelief that we managed to pull this trick again, and though it's only been 18 months (to the day!) that our first record came out, it feels like we've been sitting on these songs for a long time, so happy to release them into the wild.

NESTOR: It's kind of like a birthday you managed to forget about until afterward. As Katie says, the songs have been hanging around with us for a while, so its amazing to have them out and about, but yet just the same too... I think it'll hit home in a few weeks time.

"You've got your whole life to write your first album, and two months to write your second" - goes the cliche. Is there any truth in it though?

NESTOR: I don't think so. I guess purely in terms of timescale it could be true, but in the months after writing and recording the first record we did and saw more than we'd probably seen in our whole lives! So in terms of time then yes it could be true, but it very much depends on what you do with that time.

KATIE: We were working and at university whilst writing TGS so in terms of man hours that could actually be spent, we had way more time. I'd feel like a dick if we didn't capitalise on the luxury of not needing to do anything else.

The Golden Spike saw the band getting showered in acclaim - did you feel the heat to deliver second time round?

NESTOR: I don't think we felt any heat - if anything the response we got for The Golden Spike only helped us become more confident in our writing and in our attitude to recording. Knowing that people enjoyed listening to the music we enjoyed making meant that we could go into the writing process, and the recording too, full of enthusiasm for what we would create rather than dreading it.

What's your favourite lyric on the album and why?

KATIE: I think Nestor should answer this one! I'm too involved to have a favourite...

NESTOR: It has to be "The Department of Blowing Out Cobwebs and Lengthening Strides" from Landlocked. Even though it didn't make much sense at first, somehow I instantly knew exactly what was implied, especially when put in context with the song. I just think its a lovely piece of literal imagery.

The artwork looks like some kind of ancient Aleister Crowley-style ritualistic pattern. How did it come about?

KATIE: Before we went into the studio, I sent all the lyrics (but no music) to Jack Hudson and asked him to make it into something resembling a kaleidoscope. The artwork developed from that point on - Jack is wonderful. The back cover is made from photos we took during our stay in Seattle.

Sorry to ask a downer of a question, but has it leaked and if so, where do you stand on that?

KATIE: The Internet is such an integral part of the music industry at the moment that it's practically inevitable. In fact I'd probably be more concerned if it didn't leak at all! This record leaked a month prior to release and we decided that rather than curious people having no other option than seeking out the leaks we would stream the whole album at high quality on our site.

We'd much rather people heard our music as we want it to sound rather than compressed and re-compressed in order to make it as small as possible. People are always going to leak music - it's how you decide to work with it that's important.

You're known as a band that loves to get out there and gig - has any kind of strange telepathy developed between the members?

KATIE: A major factor in the writing of Kaleide was the chemistry that built up between us as musicians whilst touring after the first record. I think at the start of the process we were all in an unconscious agreement of how to progress from The Golden Spike because we'd witnessed the songs from that album shift and evolve over the various tours just a we did as musicians and as people too.

And finally - we loved the cinematic videos that came out of the first album. What imaginative Youtube goodies have you got in store for this time round?

KATIE: We've just released a video for 'Still Windmills' made by the brilliant London filmmaker Margarita Louca. Enjoy!