When Saints Go Machine - SO DEEP (2019)

Fourth studio album 'SO DEEP' by Danish experimental, electronic pop trio When Saints Go Machine. Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild (vocals, production), Jonas Kenton (production) and Silas Moldenhawer's (production) unique brand of digital pop experiments has seen them collaborate with the likes of Killer Mike (Run The Jewels), carved themselves an exciting niche and received critical acclaim worldwide. The three-piece's sound was born of a complicated melting pot of musical influences. Crossing dance, post punk, experimental electronica, pop and two-step, the end result resembles a heady mix of modern electronics, European club culture, contemporary rap and a dualism between composed and produced sounds as seen with Oneohtrix Point Never and Arthur Russell although really doesn't sound like anything else out there. And with their latest material, the band push that originality to another level. The engaging, extra-terrestrial feel to "So Deep" is another ambitious move from the three-piece and its genesis came about through a collaboration with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, who reinterpreted material from earlier records for live performances in their home country. That rewarding process inspired further collaborations and the expansive sound of "So Deep" is the result of that continued affinity between two tribes of musicians who, on paper, may seem the antithesis of each other. The album incorporates club inspired elements, both in sound and arrangement, exploring the process and dialogue between traditional music creation and modern digital creation. The band work tirelessly to create an expansive sample bank of orchestra recordings to put into a digital world, and then pushed and stretched them into something else entirely. The band manipulated sounds while recording in real time, which then became the sample. Samples were crafted into a score that was given back to orchestra, completing the work. A symphony of synthetic and traditional was the result, sinews between the past and future of music to create something truly unusual. This playful sense of pushing forward, of a restless desire to do something different and otherwordly is apparent across the record, an alien experiment in sound. This is pop music, celebrating the universal, but cerebral nonetheless - an example of this would be an imitation of speed through the sound of strings playing with the same tonal shift as race cars changing gears. Vocalist and founding member Nikolaj Vonsild has the following to say about the new recordings: "This is our first album in six years and the only reason we did it is that it felt like the right project, it felt important. We were inspired again. Working with the Copenhagen Philharmonic felt like the most significant project we could think of. The most giving project."