UK fashion kings, Topman, have started a music concept called CTRL. Essentially, CTRL is music site/blog that dives deep into the rich UK music scene. Each month a different band edits the blog then reviews a live show. This month, Passion Pit are the lucky ones who who are live on the site and have chosen to check out and review  Little Comets, Airship and Bicycle Thieves for their show at Korova in Liverpool on November 19th. Go check it out for some good new music!

Check out the interview below to see what Passion Pit has been up to.

enjoY!

Passion Pit – The Reeling (Burns Remix)

Q: The first question is about new music. Who’s doing it for you at the moment?

Mike – Theophilus London is a friend of mine and I love his music. It’s melodic hip-hop from a real personality. I’m a fan of pop personalities and he certainly has one. He came out of Brooklyn, has a great stage presence and I think he’s going to go a long way. It’s exciting to see him at this stage in his career.
Jeff – Fanfarlo is a personal favourite– I’d always heard their name around, but the first time I saw them was at Vibe Bar, London. I was blown away by them – they had a total Brian Eno/David Byrne, kinda Talking Heads theme going on. I thought they were brilliant

Q: It sounds like you guys get a lot of great opportunities to see live shows on tour. Are there places on the map mean a lot to you from a musical perspective?

Jeff – Red Bank New Jersey, because in ‘97 when I was in high school, Ari Katz who’s the singer of a punk group called Lifetime opened up a record shop called Black Katz. So I used to go down there when I was a little fat kid, about 12 and I would talk to him about records and he’d pitch new stuff to me and because I used to be a fan of his I’d be kind of star struck

Q – Can you still have that kind of experience in America? Because unfortunately Independent record stores in the UK have largely disappeared

Jeff – Well that place is a beauty salon now. But that wasn’t so much to do with how the record industry was going it was because where is was taxes were going through the roof and forcing people to move out
Michael – In Harvard Square there’s a number of record shops that order from distributors who are overlooked by everyone else so you can get everything. Also Boston has a lot of good record collectors who digitise stuff and bring it to these stores

Q – Do you guys collect music to use in your production?

Michael – We did very little sampling on the new record. For instance we’d drag an MP3 into a sampler and create a synthesiser out of it, but only because I didn’t have any synthesiser programmes, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that sampling. Also, we were advised against sampling, but there is Mary ‘O Hara on Sleepy Head, that was the first time I ever used a sample. It was a little Kanye of me

Q – Do you rap like him?

Michael – Yes, I rap pretty poorly…
PP – Laughter
Michael – But he’s the best producer ever!
Jeff – We can’t neglect Amoeba Records or Newbury Comics in the heart of Boston. Newbury was started by this guy that went over to England, bought a bunch or records, then came back here to the main radio station and said check this out, it’s called Punk. That pretty much started the Boston punk movement
Michael – And just for the record I was kidding around when I said he wasn’t a very good rapper. He is a very good rapper and now that’s on the record
Jeff – Yeah but so was the other comment

Q – So, apart from Kanye, what other albums that are important to you, who introduced you to them and the story behind them?

Nate – Mine would be Guns and Roses ‘Use Your Illusion 2’, because I used to listen to it when I was little and there was lots of swearing in it and me and my friends would listen to it going ‘fuck yeah!’
Jeff – I got given a copy of ‘Sgt Peppers’ when I was about 8 or 9 and that opened me up to weird sounds and then ‘Sea Change’ by Beck was another one, I think I saw the cover and thought, ‘What the hell is this?’ I think it was in a Borders where you could listen to a clip of it so I ended up buying it. I also did that with a David Byrne record that he did a while a go, ‘Grown Backwards’, I heard the first song off that and bought it immediately, it is immediately amazing
Michael – No I was just absolutely obsessed with their music and had a load of cassettes and a karaoke machine tape player. One side was Beach Boys hits and the other was Jimmy Buffet and I fucking hated Jimmy Buffett. So I’d just listen to one side on repeat, over and over and over again and ‘Barbara Ann’ was my favourite song of all time, I think it still is one of mine

Q – Let’s do a quick poll, Beach Boys or Beatles?

Ayad – Beach Boys
Ian – The Beach Boys!
Jeff – That’s harsh! Come on, It’s easy, Beach Boys have a couple of good albums and Beatles have about 50,000
Nate – If Brian Wilson was murdered they’d have been a lot cooler

Q – Controversial! That’ll be the headline for this article. Lets finish up by talking about some of your more general favourite things

Nate – My personal favourite thing is Ableton Live, whenever I’m bored, pissed off, sad, happy Ableton Live is the best thing on the planet and I’m not sponsored by them

Q – Do you DJ with Ableton?

Nate – Yes, I’m a disable-ton DJ
Ayad – One of my favourite things is this English Hummus which I’ve been eating a tub of every day