Liverpool trio Stealing Sheep have been tucked away working on their long-awaited fourth record Big Wows, their first album since 2015's Not Real.
The first glimpse of their upcoming album arrives in the form of a jittery, synth-fuelled track "Joking Me".
Speaking about the accompanying 8-bit visuals to The FADER, Stealing Sheep explain, "Both the song and the video speak a lot about today’s modern culture and how things seem throwaway: love, communication, revealing the disappointments and let downs but also the ephemeral of the delete, trash, emoji digital world. The way you can put up a front on social media, cultivate an imagined life, your best life."
They add, “We teamed up with 8bit video artist Pastel Castle (Emily Garner) from Leeds, who created Stealing Sheep avatars, we became pixelated superheroes in an over saturated and glitchy platform. It sets the scene for a full series of karaoke videos to be released alongside the album exploring Stealing Sheep in a digital dimension, shifting identities amidst changing cultural moods and millennial paraphernalia. The ‘Do you think about me’ HTML malfunction noting the obsessive nature of social media. It's a crazy time and it's challenging navigating through it.”
On their forthcoming album, Bex Hawley explains, "We wanted sounds to represent TVs, computers and everyday glitches. We started to have this feeling that life is like a game and how you can malfunction when you're blasted with too much information…”
The foundations of Big Wows were primarily made through the computer. Hawley adds, “The big challenge, is making machines sound organic, emotional, finding their flaws. That’s why Delia Derbyshire is so important to us. All the effects that she uses serve to humanise the machines.”
Big Wows was created between their homes and Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory. The trio also used a range of producers for the album, including Marta Salogni (Bjork, MIA, Factory Floor), Andy Smith (Years & Years), Ash Workman (Christine & The Queens, Metronomy) and Joe Wills (video artist for Little Dragon).
Tracklist:
- Show Love
- Back In Time
- Joking Me
- Why Haven’t I?
- Girl
- Just Dreaming
- Big Wows
- Breathe
- True Colours
- Choose Like You
- Heartbeats (hidden track)
