One of the most played records in the FACT office last year was Pursuit Grooves’ Fox Trot Mannerisms EP.

A real curveball from Pinch’s Tectonic label, an imprint naturally associated with heavyweight dubstep, it showcased New York vocalist and producer Grooves at the height of her powers, winding her vocals – sometimes silky, occasionally furious – through and around beats that sounded like the inner mechanisms of otherworldly factories stalling, restarting, and eventually dying.

This June, Smith will release her first full-length for Tectonic, Frantically Hopeful. We caught up with Grooves to talk about the new album, rhythm, reliance on technology and more.

Stream: Pursuit Grooves – Peace Talks

Fox Trot Mannerisms seemed to swing between quite stuttered, broken tracks and very smooth ones. ‘Peace Talks’, from your Soundcloud seems to combine those two features pretty well. Is that what you were going for?

“I can’t say that was my intention. It just happened naturally I guess. There are other tracks on the album that lean more one way than the other.”

Do you think you’re just naturally drawn to a musical juxtaposition between rough and smooth? It seems to be there in quite a lot of your music.

“Probably. I guess from the bass and drum programming angle I tend to go a bit hard. Where my melodies and vocals on top bring out the lighter side of it. I look at a track like ‘Whisper’ from Fox Trot Mannerisms, a lot of people were into that track. It seemed to cross over a lot of moods. To me I see it as a plus because it’s an equal amount of aggressiveness and tenderness. This is a track that won’t clear the females from the dance floor! I can’t say I do this consciously, but it is a sensibility that I am fond of. Those do tend to be my favorite tracks. And especially looking at any of my projects or albums as a whole, it is definitely a combination of rough and smooth as you say.”

You do describe the new album as being in a “different head space”. In what sense, exactly?

“Fox Trot was a bit casual. It was a true EP. Knowing this was going to be a full length album, I approached the project with a purpose message wise.”

So was that always your intention – to set out with this thought-out message for the album? Or did it just naturally form?

“Personally I am into social and political issues. I can’t help but bring this to light when I’m creating. I don’t want to overwhelm the project with doom and gloom! But I can’t help but speak on some things that I see around me that concern me. Whether I’m documenting this time period or making personal observation. Some folks talk about what’s happening in the club or on the street. I try to bring up subjects that affect us more as a society. I’ve always preferred real life and reference materials over fictional narrative. When I’m making instrumental music you can take it as you like, but there’s a good chance that if I’m vocalizing on a track, I’m using it as a platform in some way.”

I’m guessing you’ve been on the road a lot more since Fox Trot – did that affect the way the new record’s come together?

“Well it’s given me a chance to test out a few new track bits before they were fully finished. I could see how a few of them worked in a live setting.”

How did you approach Frantically Hopeful in terms of vocals? Still equal parts MCing and singing, or has it started to gravitate more towards one of those than the other?

“I really enjoy MCing since I’ve been doing it for quite some time but its much harder to write lyrics that I’m satisfied with. Singing is a bit more open, vibe and content wise. I don’t have as many spaces to fill compared to rhyming. So sometimes my ideas just come out easier if I’m singing. Its still pretty even but I see myself leaning a smidge toward singing on this album.”

The press release talks about current affairs and technological dependency. In which ways do you explore them here?

“Well first off, all of the titles were inspired by current social happenings. But also the tracks with lyrics are very direct. ‘Disconnect or I Sink’ is a chorus in one of the tracks… Referring to removing yourself from being digitally plugged in all of the time or you’ll become zombie to it. That’s just one example. I don’t want to give too much away. You have to check it for yourself.”

Do you find this is something you have to fight a lot, that need to be “plugged in”? It’s something that affects a lot of contemporary artists.

“It’s become so ingrained with how we function on the daily. But the key is finding balance. In a way technology has made so many things more accessible and easier. We can connect with people from around the world and gather information so much quicker. I just worry that we are losing a bit of our physical interaction and attention spans. We no longer know phone numbers by heart. God forbid you lose your phone! Kids today don’t know what cursive handwriting is… I mean I can go on. If the electricity went out for a week, could we survive? I’m not knocking technological innovation, I just think it becomes dangerous when we depend on it solely for our survival and human interaction.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2011 at 11:04 am and is filed under Archive, Latest, News, Top Slider and tagged with Five Minutes With..., Pursuit Grooves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.