Arriving in my inbox during the death throes of 2020, Smotherly Love’s debut EP was very much one of my favourite finds of the year. A pitch perfect tapestry of exploratory psych pop that taps into the same retro futuristic vibes as the likes of Tame Impala, LA Priest, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Predestinate Grooves is a real statement of intent. There’s also shades of early(ish) Floyd rattling around in there too – the good stuff, like some of Ummagumma or the stuff on Atom Heart Mother that isn’t Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. What makes everything even more impressive is that Smotherly Love is essentially a one-band-band; with everything written and performed by Essex-based Sam Masters.
In addition to his considerable musical and lyrical chops, Masters has also recently put together an inspired animated video for the EP’s standout Effort Vs. Reward. Featuring a bizarre cast of reptilian characters, it’s a real joy that’s more than worthy of four-minutes-and-thirty-one seconds of your time. Since hearing the EP for the first time in December, I’ve been keen to throw a few questions at Masters via email too, so scroll down to find out a little more about how these songs (and these lizards) came into being.
• Hey Sam. The video is great. I really like the style, and it kind of reminds me of underground 90s stuff – kinda like it could have been made by some crazy guy on Adobe Flash who hasn’t seen daylight for months. Hopefully that’s a compliment. Something about seeing a Norwich City shirt pop up feels very odd too. Anyway, where did the idea come from and how did you go about making it?
Thanks! I certainly became the crazy guy without daylight drawing it all – mainly it was my entire January! It was all done with free software – basically a drawing app and iMovie – it’s about 1000 or so individual pictures all about 0.2 seconds in length on screen. It took just way too long, but I certainly learnt more than I ever expected to about Lizards along the way. I’m not even totally sure where the initial idea surfaced, I just thought it would be cool to have a video for the track and a kinda ‘homemade’ feeling animation was a good match for it. Animals instead of humans taped into the slightly odd psych feeling I wanted from the music, so with no prior expertise in animation I just kinda went for it. I wanted to try to reference bits of myself (the guitarist lizard’s Norwich shirt for example) and all the instruments used are based on what I recorded the track with. A few people have made reference to it looking a bit ‘Bojack’ which I can only take as a compliment I suppose!
• As for the EP, I thought it was equally cool. I picked out a couple of (I guess) broad references in my little write-up, but I was wondering who your influences are?
When I write, I like to have a few tracks from artists handy, that I admire, and write music in a world I’m aiming loosely for. I think that this helps sharpen the focus a little, you think ‘how did they do that’ and ‘why is that bit so good’ and try to bring a little of that into the track. So on this EP I had Crumb – Locket, Hookworms – Ullswater , and Tame Impala – It Isn’t Meant to Be floating around, and I’d flick back to them when feeling a little stuck. Lyrically I would have to say I’m in awe of BC Camplight and his honesty, so I suppose I felt that as an influence in places too.
• Am I right in saying that you play pretty much everything on Predestinate Grooves too? I particularly love the 60s psych kind of stuff you have going on. You strike me as the kind of artist that might have a collection of interesting gear…
I did play it all on the record, for better or worse. Everything bar the drums was recorded at home through my UAD interface, and the drums were all done at a friend’s studio (Lomond Rooms) in Camberwell. If I’m going to be totally honest, although I tap into that sort of retro nostalgic sound, almost everything I use is modelled! I’m a fraud really. I’d love to own Fender Twins, Roland synths, organs, tape machines, guitars from the 60s etc. but I also have to eat… I have invested in decent quality emulations, and good microphones, but actually half the fun for me is using the modern software to try to manipulate my sounds and tones, to tread a balance between ‘vintage’ and modern. The guy who mixed the EP – @mixperspective – also did an amazing job giving everything this analogue warmth, saturated tape feel which I think gives music like mine a bit more musicality in a way.
• How does a song come together for you? Are you kind of building and experimenting straight into a DAW, or are you writing and then arranging after the bones are in place? The EP is so rich in pretty much all areas – lyrics, parts, instrumentation – and I’m curious as to how you get from the initial idea to finished track? Do you start on a particular instrument? I guess this is a question about your process… both writing and recording.
My writing process is probably best described as chaotic. I do work straight into a DAW, and usually a riff, or keys, or even weird synth noise is the jumping off point I have to get going. From there it’s just basically constant experimenting, building layers, trying ideas until something properly sticks. I think I know when something is feeling right very quickly, even if it takes a long time to get to that point. I spend a while shaping my sounds before I play them, I think it helps me put the expression into the performance when I have a clearer idea of what it will truly sound like within the mix. Also, I’ve really had to embrace deleting things as well! With my tracks it’s easy to get totally swamped in sections with too much happening at once so trimming back in the right places has been important. Lyrically I tend to write as I go with the track, so a certain phrase or melody will come in over say a verse section, which then helps me find a transition into something new.
• Are there any plans to play this stuff live?
I’d absolutely love to play these tracks live, however, being a one man operation currently I need to find willing people to play my tracks with me! Hopefully when venues start to open again I can try to find and convince people to join…
• Back to your influences – if you had to pick, say, three records that mean the most to you, what would you go for and why? (Apologies if this sounds like the kind of question Cilla Black used to ask on Blind Date.)
I wish I could just list off all these totally obscure 60s psych bands and give myself ‘music nerd kudos’ but I’m gonna to be a bit more honest. These are records that mean a lot to me in terms of the place I try to write from but also as just records anyway. I would also add that there’s about 20 more that I could have very easily interchanged in here! Certainly I can say that Radiohead’s In Rainbows would have to feature. I have been listening to that album since I was 17, it’s almost therapeutic now. I listen to it in a bad mood driving home from work, when I’m chilling on a Sunday afternoon, when I’m nervous about to take off on a flight, just everywhere. It just opens up and swallows me and I find myself completely immersed within it. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion means a lot to me. It’s an album that’s filled with such strange and odd sounds and motifs but it’s just nothing but perfect pop songs within it. I think its a real influence for my writing as it showed me that there’s room for the weird and different everywhere. Tame Impala – Currents would probably round this list off nicely, I mean it’s unrivalled production should be enough, but actually I think that it’s quite a brave record, he could have carried on with his fuzzy more guitar-driven records but he
moved forwards into this glorious polished sound and it worked so well. It’s always a benchmark I hold up with my writing.
• Are there any particular ambitions for Smotherly Love? I mean, is there a goal in mind for this year – other EPs, videos, an album? – but also are you thinking about any long-term things beyond that?
I’m writing away now. I’ve got a few tracks that are really feeling good, which will require some proper recording and mixing, and I’m really excited to get them polished. These will probably be drip fed out slowly, as singles to try and get a bit more attention paid to them. Beyond that I’m always wanting to find new things to do around my tracks, the video I did was really rewarding (excuse the pun) so maybe more in the works there. I feel like this EP is very much the beginning and I’m keen to see where it goes on from here!
You can find out everything you need to know about Smotherly Love here.
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