Finding a hook on “iii,” the new Miike Snow album, is like locating a needle in a stack of needles. After four years of lag-time, “iii,” the third offering from three well-established producers — Swedish producers Pontus Winnberg and Christian Karlsson, who’ve worked together as Bloodshy & Avant; and American musician Andrew Wyatt — arrived earlier this year, offering falsetto vocals, bright pianos, electronic glitches and transmogrified vocal samples, twitchy synths and guest appearances from Charli XCX and Run the Jewels.
Miike Snow tours as a four-piece band this fall (Hamden’s Anthony Rossomando is the band’s touring guitarist), including along with a stop at College Street Music Hall in New Haven on Sept. 29. Winnberg spoke to CTNow about collaborating with his bandmates on “iii” and the upcoming tour.
Q: When you, Christian and Andrew got back together, you’d all gained some new individual experiences. How did that change the group dynamic, if at all?
A: We did a lot of stuff prior to the first album as well. I guess we all had our own grounds to stand on, in a sense. I don’t think it changed that much. If anything, we had a little bit of new inspiration to bring to the table. It was all for the better.
Q: Creatively speaking, what do you get from those two guys that doesn’t happen on your own, or with other collaborators?
A: We all share the same type of curiosity for all kinds of music. None of us consider that we come from a specific genre. We’re curious about music, and that’s very refreshing. Sometimes, when you go into sessions and people have preconceived ideas about what’s going to come out of it, that can be a bit of a burden and an obstacle. That we all have that makes everything more fun. It doesn’t feel like work. It gives it that special type of flow.
Q: Five of the songs were written pretty much instantaneously. What went on, creatively speaking?
A: In general, if you have something that triggers ideas, if someone comes with a seed that’s planted at the right time, with the right people in the room, the song sort of writes itself. Every choice becomes very evident. It’s hard to describe, really. It’s an organic process. Everything seems to fall into the right place automatically, without really knowing how that happens. Having the right seed is one aspect of it, the first idea, a sound or beat or lyric or melody, and then catching a moment when everyone is open and has the energy to go through with it. When that’s done, there’s still so much work to do from a production standpoint.
Q: Did you all bring parts of songs that you had around, waiting to be used somewhere?
A: Probably. It’s pretty random. You have to tackle it from so many angles. That also goes for our collective method. We don’t really have a method. We can tackle it from so many angles. For me, that’s necessary to avoid writer’s block or be completely fed up with my own ideas.
Q: As a listener, I wonder what sonic signatures each of you brings to the table individually. How would you characterize each musician’s stylistic traits?
A: It’s hard to point out. It’s not so clear. You could say, “He always brings in the guitar, or he always has this syncopated hi-hat.” It’s more subtle than that. Since we all do production, we can all get our fingers in there. It can be a little bit of everything. There’s stylistic differences in the approach, the pick of that specific synth sound.
Q: I was listening to Higher Self’s remix of “My Trigger.” How does the remix process work? Do you participate on any level before actually hearing the finished remix?
A: We’re just happy that people have interest in doing a bunch of remixes. It’s always fun to hear their take on it. There’s no method there either. If someone wants to do a remix, we just send off the stems. That’s the hidden rule when it comes to remixing. You have to let people do whatever they want to do with it. It’s a free, safe haven for crazy ideas to bloom. It’s important to keep it that way.
Q: How important is pop radio success at this point in your career?
A: I think it’s a component. I personally like radio. I like the phenomenon and to be able to tune in to someone who’s curating an hour of music in a specific genre or direction. Commercially, for a career, it definitely has a rule, but it’s one component in many. There are more and more components to the whole mix to build a career these days. It’s that, and being playlisted in people’s personal playlists, and all kinds of stuff.
Q: You also put a lot of thought into your music videos.
A: It’s fun to have that as its own creative world and entity. We can tell a different type of story through that medium.
Q: How does Miike Snow approach live shows? What’s the energy like?
A: We’ve always tried to bring something extra live, visually and musically. This time around, we tried to expand it a little bit. When we go more into the electronic side of things, we go deep into the electronic world. When we go into more band-type stuff, we’re literally just a four-piece playing instruments, combined with a bunch of visual stuff we’ve created with some friends of ours. We try to touch on every sense, something visual and a musical/sonic journey.
MIIKE SNOW performs at College Street Music Hall in New Haven on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 8 p.m., with Zella Day opening. Tickets are $30-$32. collegestreetmusichall.com
MIIKE SNOW
Thursday, 8 p.m. $30-$32
College Street Music Hall, New Haven
collegestreetmusichall.com
