CONRAD RICHTERS, RICHARD CARTWRIGHT and BRENT GRIFFIN from Richard In Your Mind drop some dope director's commentary on their latest album 'My Volcano'.

Tiny Collosus Face

Conrad: This song sounds like Jane’s Addiction with steel drums. Actually they had steel drums on ‘Jane Says’ didn’t they? But our steel drums have delay on them. I think Rich sounds a bit like Perry Farrell on this song, in a good way. He sounds like a shaman. The lyrics are quite dark even though the music sounds happy.

Rich: Oh that’s nice that Conrad thinks I sound like Perry. Sweet. Yeah, this song had been round a while and when we first started playing it, it was this anthemic cock rock kind of thing, so we thought we better slow it down and put steel drums on it. As for meaning I guess it’s a tale of a friends journey down a dark path, though hopefully Tiny Colossus Face shall rise up and scale the earth.

Brent: I’m excited to listen back through this record! Man, this sounds really good, doesn’t it? Ah, the first song to a huge year of makin’ shit happen. This song is kind of like being in the green room in pipeline, just surfdoggin’ the gnarzone with a lei up on the neck and love on the mind. Pretty mega song to open with – even though we had to break Conrad’s arms to keep it there. Myself, Julia Wilson (Rice Is Nice) and Owen Penglis (Straight Arrows) dropped some amazing claps in this. No lie.

‘Candelabra’

Rich: Our first album was real chill and after we made it I think we wanted to do something a bit more upbeat. Inevitably we soon wanted to make things chill again, but here is an example of further forays into the sample-y production-y stuff. It’s a story about living/dying/lighting. In this song I say “opalescent moon mantra”.

Conrad: This is the most party time song on the album. It sounds a bit like Odelay-era Beck I think. It used to have a completely different beat but Brent found this more hip-hop sounding beat and suddenly everything opened up.

Brent: This was one of the first songs I started on, and it nearly killed me. Still not sure of the mix, but the song is rad, so whatever. Yeah, the drums were super locked down, and sounded really sweet and rigid, but with all the changes we were making with the song as the mixing progressed, it was kind of asking for a bit more of a lactose beat, y’know? So I opened that sucker up like a can of sardines. Milkrubbin’ the nub, y’know? This song is weird as shit if you really think about it, or you can just vote with y’dancin’ shoes. You decide.

“I would love to make a whole album of dreamy psychedelic lounge music.”

‘Losing Our Minds’

Conrad: We wanted to make sure the album wasn’t just all production and effects and it was clear we could actually write good songs without the fancy stuff. This is just a simple folk song, all live instruments (except for one sneaky bleep that Brent put in).

Brent: That sneaky bleep is still played live, man! I made a promise to put an 808 kick on EVERY song too. Did I? Didn’t I? Hmmm. I really wanted to keep this song sounding rough and lovely, nice and open. Oh, and those Jordy harmonies in the end are the most lovely breezes through a field of reeds ever.

Rich: Here’s a sneaky, the lyric used to be “loosen” our minds, but Conrad thought it was “losing” our minds, and I thought that was kinda better while at the same time sort of saying the same thing. I say “sex machine” in this song.

‘Birds’

Rich: ‘Birds’ is probably the most positive song on the album –everything else is at least laced with doubts and fear. I guess it’s a celebration of doing stuff and then having good feelings happen as a result. It's also about birds.

Conrad: Rich pretty much made the whole song himself. I like having an electronic sounding song following such an organic one.

Brent: Rich brought this one in super late into the piece and I nearly popped my pants off. What a jam! The ultimate chill party jam! Conrad and Rich used to talk about this song ‘Birds’ they wanted to merge with my song ‘Cats’ for ages, but I’d never heard it. We still have to do that, dudes! I just wanted to keep it flowing, kind of big but tidy; sounding rubbery but still organic. Did that. The secret 808 isn’t too secret in this one. I worked on this one a fair bit when everyone had bailed, ‘cause I loved it like that.

‘I Will’

Brent: I remember hearing this song for the first time when they played it live yaaages ago and got pretty excited. Glad I had a chance to work on it. Wanted to keep it as Orbison-y as possible. Getting it sounding dirty enough was the secret. Being the first song people hear of the album is pretty cool. Lovely song.

Conrad: This is probably the most we have ever worked on a song. Recording, mixing, rerecording, remixing – it took forever to get it right.

Rich: This one should have been easy but somehow it wasn’t. I’m really happy with the final result though. Like a lot of songs on the album it really came together when Brent got a RE-201 Space Echo. I wanted it to be kinda like a holiday in a broken down swamp with big colourful dangerous bugs crawling/flying around. It’s a love song.

‘Lightning Eyes’

Conrad: This one feels the most like something off our first album to me. I think it sums up our general sound and vibe pretty well.

Brent: Classic RIYM. Ah, Space Echo, I love you. I think this is the one that I worked my nuts off to get the drums sounding Steely Dan-ish, and they came out pretty sweet. I just see rolling green rainforests and hills under thunderclouds in slow-motion every time I hear this.

Rich: Brent put cool Oberheim Matrix 1000 synth on this and it felt ready, plus some more space echo. Its chill, I like it. It’s a subdued kinda rolling thunder man kinda song. (It was the Oberheim on this song that made me decide to go out and get one.)

‘This Face’

Conrad: I love this one, it’s another one where Rich did pretty much all of it himself. The beats are great.

Brent: This jam is a total dark prince whispering demands through a meaty dream. Kind of like ‘Birds’ and ‘Creation’ had a baby. Richard Cartwright is a total situation, he’s the brain I wish I had. What a bassline! Boner jam 101, son.

Rich: Yeah, I had this one lying around and towards the end of the process I showed it to Conrad and it got on the album. I’m super stoked, ‘cause I play bass on this one – even though it’s probably true Conrad could play it better, maybe. It was inspired by a book I got from Vinnies of Jung ideas turned into folk tale kinda things. It’s also about the demon that lives inside me that appears usually when I haven't eaten in a while.

‘Mongrowlia’

Conrad: This is the first song we started on with Brent and we got it sounding good really quickly. I think it sounds a bit like The Avalanches or DJ Shadow but we actually played most of it. There aren’t that many samples.

Rich: No, not many samples at all (ahem). We certainly did play all the bass, electric guitar, saxes and some super chopping of freaky beats by yours truly. Werd. I would love to make a whole album of dreamy psychedelic lounge music. This one for me has the right ratio of chillin’, groovin’ and trippin’.

Brent: This song sounds like a REAL summer jam, maybe late summer, early spring jam. Yeah, ‘Mongrowlia’ just kind of happened, then I forgot to ever go back to it, so it’s like the fourth mix of it, which is cool. When given a diamond this juicy, you just gotta put it in your medallion and you’re off, really.

‘The Sun Broke Into Your Heart’

Rich: This one used to be strummy but Conrad said maybe play it really “dok dok dok dok”, and it made it far more interesting. I say “narwhal” in this song.

Conrad: There had to be at least one “sun” song on the album. Actually, there was going to be another one, but it just missed out.

Brent: Surprisingly tricky song to do up. That rise in the centre is an analog dream! I really wanted to have it be like a slow rush of horrid anxiety around this pretty, sad folk chug. The Minimoog came into its own here. Actually, for an acoustic song, this really has a lot of my synths on it. I think this is what convinced rich to buy an Oberheim.

‘Creation’

Rich: This is a song about how most people believe that when a human transmogrifies into a tree they are upright with their feet sinking into the ground and their head and arms become the foliage in a kinda leafy afro sorta way. However, this is false. It’s actually your head that goes into the ground so as to absorb/eat/breathe in all the nutrients from the earth. The neck extends into the trunk and the body with its “limbs” becomes the limbs of the tree with fingers and toes as twiggy extensions, plus the genitals are up there to flower so birds and bees can come along and help you to procreate. There you go.

Brent: That drop into this is from the space jam butternut perfection. I love this song, the creeper of the album. Rich tied this kid’s laces and pushed it into a sleeping cow. Rad.

Conrad: Dub music!

‘Edge Off Dreaming’

Rich: I really like this song. It’s kinda just about me being scared of stuff, but then reassuring myself that it's probably all OK. It was a “whoops I just wrote a song” kinda moment that I barely remember ‘cause it all just fell into place. I used an old Calrad bullet mic and it sounds cool and old and scratchy.

Conrad: This is the most intimate song on the album. It’s a ballad, a bit like ‘Dark Energy’ off the first album, but not as grandiose. Seja played the awesome keyboards that come in halfway through.

Brent: A pretty, brittle ballad that’ll hurt your soul. Conrad, don’t forget there’s you on an organ in there too, buds. Yeah, I mailed this to Seja and she ripped it apart. Sistahood! The guitar solo will wreck your soul, too.

‘Flower of the Heart’

Conrad: Probably my favourite. This one was a real collaboration between me, Rich and Brent. We all kinda took over working on it at different points. It was totally different when it started, I think at some point we all started subconsciously channeling the Boredoms.

Rich: Yeah it’s a big Boredoms salute, but also the beginning half is trying to re-write ‘Blue Jay Way’.

Brent: Yeah, Conrad was like the spiritual conductor of this song for sure, I was the construction supervisor and labourer and Rich was the original architect. We built a mammoth monolith monster of jungle doom. Very proud dads.

‘Jamaica’

Rich: This was too smooth to not put on the album and it’s the perfect antidote to ‘Flower of the Heart (Attack)’.

Conrad: This is just a little ambient thing I made, but we liked the way it sounded after ‘Flower of the Heart’. We put the steel drums from ‘Tiny Collosus Face’ in at the end to tie everything up.

Brent: Take ’em out, Conrad “Henry Winkler” Richters, with a wistful jungle memory. I love you guys.

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My Volcano is out now through Rice Is Nice. Click here for launch dates.