If you haven’t already listened loose loose’s new EP sanguine, stop what you’re doing and go listen to it now. These are still early days, but we’re already calling it as one of our favourite releases of the year.
So fresh off the EP’s release, we asked each member of the band to share a song (or songs) that influenced the new release. Take it away loose loose…
Fresh off the release of their new EP sanguine, we caught up with American septet loose loose for a playlist of tracks that influenced their sound.
Zach: Wilco – Either Way
This song is what exposed me to the genius of guitar player Nels Cline. He writes beautiful harmonies and lines that only serve to complement the song as a whole. His playing on this song is what inspired the solo on wrong Way.
Isaac: Daniel Caesar – Take Me Away
The first time I heard this song I was legitimately dumbfounded by the guitar/vocal solo at ‘1:20’. So much tension and angst is packed into that utterly bizarre sound. I was mystified from a production standpoint, as I had no idea how he got that sound. I wanted to find a similar emotionally potent and unsettling sound for our song rewind.
Jacob: Ben Monder & Paul Motian – Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and Paul Motian proves that the drumstick can treat them both. In this absolute journey of a piece, instead of playing notes, Motian plays
space. He implies shapes and colours and emotions and casts his abstract expressionism across your imagination. This became the foundation for how I approached the final song, rewind: feeling over playing.
Robert Glasper Experiment feat. Norah Jones – Let It Ride
The brilliance of this tune is that it pulls from so much outside source material without seeming derivative. It’s jazz, but it’s also soul. And then there’s drummer Mark Colenburg’s molten-hot groove, which is something like a meta-synthesis of the Amen Break, as though it pulls more from DnB pioneers like Goldie or the Prodigy, while still keeping in mind the fathers of the break, Clyde Stubblefield and Gregory Coleman. This conscientious yet iconoclastic attitude is so important for all of loose loose’s music.
J.aRtiz: Jamila Woods – Holy
This song to me is like an ode to self-love and to all those that need to hear more melodic messages that align with a higher sense of love.
CJ: Ambrose Akinmusire – a blooming bloodfruit in a hoodie
In his own words on the album, Akinmusire said he was thinking about “free improvisation versus controlled calculation.” I think that’s also the balance we’re trying to strike as a group, and it’s often at the forefront of my mind – what to write in stone and what to leave open for improvisation. His way of supporting and mimicking the vocalist’s ideas throughout the verses is one I try to emulate in the way I interact with our vocalists. The unrestrained harmonic and rhythmic approach of his final solo also especially influenced my own solo in Toast.
Justin: Hiatus Kaiyote – Malika
I consider myself to be a very melodic player. I’m in love with melody and runs and licks and in my mature years of being a musician I’ve come to owe much of that love to Hiatus Kaiyote. I feel like their song Malika has such a haunting and beautiful melody that compels me to listen every single time it crosses my mind. I wanted to bring that same type of passion and influence into making this EP specifically in What’s Mine Is Yours and Rewind.
SymonneSPARKS: Esperanza Spalding – Jazz (Ain’t Nothing but Soul)
Fusion at its finest, This is a musical example of how I feel when all of us get together. We all feel that music represents us differently, and how we all view and appreciate music matters, no matter the genre. How we bring our love of music together to make is own is out of this world.
Lea Salonga (originally written by Joe Raposo) – Sing
This song takes me back to my childhood, as it was written for Sesame Street back in 1971. This song is sanguine (intentional plug). This song is what I sing to myself almost every other day. It’s about having the confidence and freedom to let the song in your heart be released just as it is for music’s sake.”Don’t worry that it’s not good enough for anyone to hear… just sing, sing a song.”
D’Angelo – Brown Sugar
This is a song that initially brought us together as a group. It’s one of the first songs we covered
and continue to do so today. D’Angelo has influenced all in many ways.
Sanguine is available now. Listen here.
