Axes, the new record from Electrelane, signifies a return to more comfortable waters for the British quartet. Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Verity Susman tells Dan Rule of the journey.

Electrelane. Photograph:Tara Darby

“This one feels like the record we’ve always wanted to make,” says Verity Susman of her band’s new album, Axes. “I think the first record and the last one felt more natural to play, but I think we’ve been definitely more satisfied with Axes than we’ve been with either of the previous two records.”

And Susman – who is today back in her old hometown of Brighton, England, preparing for another leg of the band’s extensive touring schedule – has good reason to be in high spirits. Electrelane’s third and perhaps most developed album to date, Axes has already garnered a remarkable amount of positive press attention and seen the band grace the cover of prestigious UK music journal, The Wire. But more importantly for Susman, Axes has seen the band working in a more dynamic and comfortable creative space.

“I think, in some ways, The Power Out feels to us like a kind of anomaly,” she explains, referring to the band’s previous album. “It was the odd one out. We do see ourselves as an instrumental band, primarily, and I like the balance of instruments and vocals on this new record.”

2004’s The Power Out did signal a shift for the then Brighton-based four-piece – in terms of both musical awareness and cultural capital. While the band’s first ever single, 2000’s Film Music, signalled their early artistic intentions in the clearest possible terms, the following year’s debut long player, Rockit To The Moon, saw them further explore the cinematic aesthetic, and traverse numerous dispositional, atmospheric and rhythmical standpoints. Predominantly instrumental and largely improvised, the record bled organ-heavy kraut-rock sensibilities into unchecked compositional arrangements. It was raw and diffuse, and showcased a young band, while high on creative energy, perhaps lacking in curatorial astuteness.

It wasn’t until The Power Out – which saw the band head in a somewhat divergent direction – that prominent critical attention was really forthcoming. For starters, they added vocals to the mix, and with that, a more pop-based structure to their sound. Playful keyboards interacted with angular guitars, while Susman’s multi-lingual vocals – sung in French, German, Spanish and English – offered a fresh take on the art-pop paradigm. But what was most interesting about the band’s addition of vocals wasn’t the languages as such, but their lyrical ambiguity, and indeed, their unconventional application.

“I’m not singing words as such; it’s just like having singing as another instrument,” explains Susman. “We always come up with the melody and the music before the vocals. That’s the way we always write.”

“I learnt French and German at school,” she continues. “But I’m in no way fluent in them. I can’t speak Spanish at all,” she laughs. “It’s the vowel sounds and things like that, which are really important. It’s like I’ve already got a melody line and I’m trying to find words that will fit into the shape of that. Obviously I’m trying to find something that conveys… not the meaning, but the feeling that’s in the music. So yeah, the shape of the words matters a lot when you’re trying to fit them into a melody that’s already there.”

In the context of The Power Out’s success, it was quite surprising, then, that Axes inched away from vocal use and pop-orientation, instead gravitating towards more textural and layered compositions.

“We wanted to be more experimental with structure and mood,” says Susman. “We wanted this record to be a lot more spontaneous as well, so we kept a lot of improvisation in the recording. A lot of the songs were completely improvised, while in others, we might have had a loose idea of the structure, but we’d make the changes from one part to another by listening to each other. It was a really enjoyable album to write.”

Recorded over three weeks by Steve Albini, the chiefly instrumental record retains some of the cinematic flavours of Rockit To The Moon, but introduces a whole new range of stylistic tensions and alterations – abrasive, noise-based sounds blend and clash with poppy, melodic moments, while punchy post-punk guitar lines circulate within drawn-out post-rock arrangements – played out with a raw, unpolished sonic and compositional edge. “We wanted to get more of a live sound than the last record had – to get more of a blend of all the instruments,” explains Susman. “When we got there we said we wanted to record all in the same room. That was really good for the overall sound and just the interaction within the band. It was like being in a rehearsal room, so that was really important for the performances. We recorded it with all the songs running together, so it was just like, bang, from start to finish.”

“I think in the past, we’ve replaced one part, then replaced another, and you just really lose the energy. There were some vocal over-dubs and some of the instruments like the cello and brass and choir, but the basic instruments were live.”

The addition of Ros Murray on bass (who replaced former bassist Rachel Dalley) to the core trio of Susman, guitarist Mia Clarke and drummer Emma Gaze, also played an influential role in the writing and recording process. “I think the change in line-up really worked for us, because when you’re improvising together everybody’s input is really important. We really spark off each other and there’s a real dynamic in the band now, and it works better than it has in the past.”

Nevertheless, it would seem that the band members couldn’t possibly live any further from each other. While Murray still resides in their native Brighton, this year has seen Susman move to Berlin, Clarke to Prague, and Gaze to Los Angeles. But Susman allays any fears. Things couldn’t be better for Electrelane, and exploring different territories – be they creative or geographical – could only be considered healthy.

“I think we’d all been waiting for a chance to move… Wait, I’m making it sound like we don’t get on,” she laughs. “But you know how it is when you’re spending 24 hours a day with the same people everyday.”

“When we were on tour last year, we’d be playing together every night, and after that we were doing a lot of rehearsals, and then writing for the album. We were seeing each other a lot, so when we’d finished the album it wasn’t so much that everyone wanted to get a way from each other, but everyone wanted to move away and go some different places. Brighton’s a very small place, you know.”