!!! (Chk Chk Chk)

Thr!!!er

Image of !!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Thr!!!er
Record Label
Warp

About this item

"Over the course of many long van rides and post-coffee verbal riff sessions", guitarist Mario Andreoni explains, "'Thriller' didn't merely represent the selling of a lot of records, it became synonymous with an artist(s) and/or genre(s) artistic high-water mark. INXS' 'Kick' is the Australian 'Thriller'... Alanis's 'Jagged Little Pill' is the Canadian 'Thriller'... Wham's 'Make It Big' is the blow-dryer's 'Thriller'... every recording by the 13th Floor Elevators is the dosed-man's 'Thriller'... 'Sister Ray' by Velvet Underground is the 'Thriller' of musical fever dreams. One day at the studio, Nic (Offer, vocalist) drew 'THR!!!ER' on a napkin and I liked it... Then we made our own 'THR!!!ER'." - Nic Offer

Famous for their high-energy live shows and relentless touring schedule, the band have really focused their efforts on crafting an album with tighter song structures. To help with this, the majority of the album was recorded with Jim Eno, the drummer in Spoon and one of the key forces behind the boards for the band. Like many people, Jim was a fan of !!!'s live show, but he felt that they too often tried to capture these performances in the studio. Instead of trying to chase this feeling, Jim encouraged them to create a different type of excitement by using weirder sounds, inventing new dynamics within each song and introducing unexpected changes. "They had this working flow that was a little rigid and I wanted to break them out of it," says Jim.

With the members spread out across the country, writing new music wasn't the easiest of processes. Andreoni offers that "In the past we just put albums together any way that works. That usually meant a lot of jamming on loose ideas." For 'THR!!!ER', !!! went into the studio with everything written and a strong sense of each song's shape. "We've never tried to make the same record twice, we might have accidentally, but we've always tried to push on. For this one it felt like we definitely shoved off from the shore," says Offer.

STAFF COMMENTS

David says: Walking a similar path to LCD Soundsystem, !!! confuse people. Are they indie? Are they dance? Are they (shudder) indie dance? The answer, obviously, is when a record gets down, like 'Thr!!!er' gets down, who really gives a f##k?

TRACK LISTING

01. Even When The Water's Cold
02. Get That Rhythm Right
03. One Girl / One Boy
04. Fine Fine Fine
05. Slyd
06. Californiyeah
07. Except Death
08. Careful
09. Station (Meet Me At The)

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