Artist Spotlight: LEISURE

Shot by Nicole Brannen

New Zealand collective LEISURE have recently unveiled their kaleidoscopic new body of work ‘Sunsetter‘, a melting pot of sound, groove and emotion that leaves its listener drooling for more. 

Having garnered critical acclaim for their terrific self-titled debut album and the follow up project ‘Twister’, the band have taken a leisurely approach (excuse the pun) to writing and recording their new album. Travelling around France and New Zealand, LEISURE set up DIY studios in hotels and Air BnB’s, immersed in their experiences, settings and each other. An artful concoction of genres, the album is a journey through the group growing up and building relationships, with beautifully confounding and colour-stricken soundscapes the backdrop for striking tales of love, heartbreak and everything in between. 

I caught up with LEISURE to discuss their vibrant new album 'Sunsetter', coming of age as a collective, and taking the scenic route to creative excellence

Who’s influencing you lately?

Oh, a mixture of vibes really. I’ve been loooving this track by The Sweet Enough called Dream Puppy. I’ve been super influenced by the honesty of comedians Bobby Lee and Bill Burr. I’m also super inspired by the new Beatles doc. It makes me so happy watching them just fuck around and figure things out.

As an independent, non-western collective, how has it been trying to break into the UK scene?

To be honest breaking into any scene has never really been at the forefront of our minds. We’re not a bunch of 18 year olds anymore, we all have careers and families to look after - LEISURE is just an excuse for us to convene and have a good time together. We are just happy to be together and make music that we like.

How is the New Zealand scene? Any names we should be taking notice of?

Ooh I might not really be the right one to ask as I’m not a massive pop music fan. Benny’s Videos is pretty low key but he makes some magic. I’m loving J. Flyger’s EP a lot. Marlin’s Dreaming’s new album is really cool.

I love the mind set you seem to uphold regarding the pitfalls of success and the significance of true art. Do you feel, in this modern age of social media and fame obsessions, that the music industry is shallow?

Yeah it’s way too much man. We’re totally unplugged from that world and it’s lovely. We’re happy doing things at our own pace and I think people who vibrate at that same frequency just find us naturally. I remember reading something in the Bhagavad Gita that sums it up really well (which I just googled): 

“Let your concern be on your action, let it not be on the outcome of the action. Do not act only out of expectation of a result, but then do not slip into inactivity.”

There is this constant need to categorise every artist so minutely, do you ever feel boxed by the industry? 

I definitely know what you mean - we are definitely in a referential culture, but no not really. Lots of people tell us that our sound is a little harder to define. I think that is in part due to our wide array of influences and backgrounds and then in part due to our collective musical maturity. When you’re younger and first starting you tend to just rip off your favourite bands and imitate your heroes - it takes a while to figure out your thing and find your own voice. 

The grooves and cadences on the new album are so impressive! How was the creative process? Do you always agree on creative matters as a band? 

Thank you very much! Yes everything has to go through what we call the leisure gauntlet. There will be some songs that 4 of us love but one of us doesn’t, and it won’t make it through, and no one will probably ever hear it. It’s a sometimes brutal process but it keeps us in check and always pushing to make the best art we can. It is also the process that enables our music to have that signature leisure sound people talk about.  It needs everyone of us to sign off.

I loved your seamless approach to the record, ambling around hotels and recording in makeshift studios around the world. Why did you opt to record in this way, rather than a short sharp burst in a studio? 

We all have lives and other things to do. Leisure is a part time endeavour - a fun escape. If we were full time we could probably pump out 1-2 albums a year but that was never the point of the project.

The album feels built around experiences, and there is a real sense of the journey that you partook throughout its recording in the final product. How do you sonically and narratively condense and amalgamate your feelings and journey into a 45 minute album?

I think it just happens naturally. It’s the human process, it’s never a conscious planned thing. You just go and go until it starts to feel like you have covered everything you wanted to I suppose.

To me, it feels like a coming of age project, both in its sonic maturity and in its lyrical themes. Would you agree?

100%. It’s a coming of age project but into your proper adult life maybe. Our 20s are done, and it’s us looking forward as men. We all have families now that need our support financially and emotionally. It’s us reflecting on who we’ve been and now who we want to be moving ahead. I guess in a way it’s us figuring out how to be the best versions of ourselves in this next stage of life together.

The amount of different influences and styles on the project is amazing. How do you combine so many sounds with such musical articulacy? 

Thank you! Again, I think it’s a subconscious process. We all have a huge amount of respect for each other and our individual creative nuances. We give each other the space we need to flesh out and realise our ideas. This is vital to the way we make music and not always easy for a lot of groups to pull off.

If you were introducing yourself to a new listener who had never heard your music before, what song would you play them?

Right now I’d probably play them Slipping Away. I feel like it really sums up the latest record. I feel like most of our top tracks sum us up at the time (Got It Bad, Money etc)

What’s to come from you?

Always more! We’ve mostly just gotten out of our latest lockdown over here so we can now reunite, play some shows and write in the same room together again