Smith & Mudd unveil Le Suivant

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    Tue, May 26, 2009, 13:30
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  • Ben Smith and Paul "Mudd" Murphy are set for more lush, downtempo meanderings on their sophomore full-length.
  • Smith & Mudd unveil Le Suivant image
  • Ben Smith and Paul "Mudd" Murphy are set to follow up 2007's Blue River with a brand new full-length next month. Cheekily entitled Le Suivant ("The Next One" in English), the album sees the duo come together to work their collaborative magic in the studio yet again, with a few new people drafted in the help out. Faze Action's Robin Lee even lends his cello skills to the record, whilst the usual cast of friends and session musicians have fleshed out the tracks with all sorts of instrumentation. As with their previous work, Le Suivant sees the duo venture away from their more dancefloor-oriented material to create a lush summer soundtrack, mixing influences from folk, jazz, disco and even Indian music. As with most of the vinyl releases on Mudd's Claremont 56 imprint, the LP version will be limited to just 500 copies, so wax addicts should act quickly if they fancy a slice of sunkissed melodicism to sup their cocktails to over the summer months. We caught up with Mudd by e-mail to ask him about the recording sessions and his future plans for Claremont 56.
    You use quite a few session musicians on the record, right? Yes, we worked with some fabulous musicians on this one. You can play all the instruments on soft synths but there's nothing like recording the real thing by someone who's played the instrument all their lives. It was great to finally work with Robin (Lee of Faze Action) who I've admired for a long time - the cello is such a beautiful instrument to record. How does your approach to production differ when you're working with Ben? It's more instant with Ben as he can play most instruments and the start idea can come from either one of us. If I'm working on my own I usually get the track rolling and then get some session musicians in to develop it. Ben has a completely different background to me so his references will come from folk or rock and mine will come from electro/disco etc. Le Suivant - is it balearic? Hopefully it's just nice music. What's on the horizon for Claremont 56? Originals 3 is nearly ready (compiled by Sean P), Prins Thomas is remixing a couple of tracks from the album and the Fist Of Facts release is about to come out. I'm also starting a sub label called Claremont, which will just be for live bands.
    Tracklist 01. New Sofa 02. Genoa 03. Little Millie 04. The Delivery Man 05. Le Suivant 06. Two Rivers 07. Ninety Three 08. Wem 09. The Waiting 10. Annette Road Claremont 56 will release Le Suivant on June 1st, 2009.
RA