Minor Victories are Slowdive's Rachel Goswell, Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite, Editors' Justin Lockey, and his brother James Lockey. Their eponymous debut was released over the summer.
Speaking about the new record, Justin Lockey says:
"I don't really know that much about music in terms of theory, notes, scales etc. I generally just fuck about with things until it sounds right to my ear... So I guess to call this album Orchestral Variations, it would have to be in the loosest ever sense of the term.
"When we were putting together the Minor Victories album, a lot of the music came about through string arrangements, motifs, melodies, countermelodies and other such noodlings I was messing about with. This record kind of takes it back to that initial point, and re-imagines the whole record from that standpoint - the bare bones, the hint at a vocal melody, not relying on any backbeat - but stripping the songs back to the base elements and then piece-by-piece making an entirely new record. It takes the songs and elements around them and the phrases into a new place, mostly born out of hindsight and I guess a curiosity to fuck around with it all long enough until it sounded right to my ear. From all that an entirely new record was formed. It's not a remix album, or b-sides... it's just another way at looking/hearing things."
Orchestral Variations is released 27 January via Play It Again Sam. Pre-order now.
Tracklist:
- Cogs
- Breaking My Light
- The Thief
- Give Up the Ghost
- Scattered Ashes
- Folk Arp
- For You Always
- A Hundred Ropes
- Higher Hopes
- Out to Sea
