Friendly Fires plan 'samba' album

By Georgie Rogers
6 Music News reporter

The band are lined-up as one of the Blur comeback support acts

Indie-disco trio Friendly Fires have revealed plans for their Peruvian, "Festejo"-inspired second album.

The band said they intend to write the record during festival season and release a taster single in August.

"It's kind of that samba, calypso vibe that's been pushed further," explained frontman Ed MacFarlane.

Singles Paris and Jump in the Pool, from last year's acclaimed self-titled debut album, climbed high in the charts.

Fresh from performing in Mexico, the band are well into their sold out tour of the UK, with a host of European and US festival dates ahead of them.

Speaking to BBC 6 Music, singer Ed MacFarlane described their new song: "It's a progression from Jump in the Pool. It's really Brazilian. There's no 4/4 drum beats, it's all traditional samba rhythms."

Friendly Fires intend the track to be a linking single in between albums, which they have been working on with Bloc Party and Florence and the Machine producer Paul Epworth.

Direction

According to MacFarlane, the band's new material will continue to reflect their love of South American music.

"I think our next album is definitely going to be heading down the samba route," he continued. "It's something that we've been experimenting with and we really like. It's something a bit different from just doing more traditional disco-inspired music.

It's something a bit different from just doing more traditional disco-inspired music

Singer Ed MacFarlane on samba-inspired sound

"There's a form of music called Festejo, which is from Peru and I remember seeing a YouTube clip of these two girls dancing to these guys playing really rhythmic drum patterns," he said of how he became inspired with that style of music.

"The crowd was just going absolutely insane and I remember watching it and thinking, 'This is amazing, I want to incorporate it into our music'," added MacFarlane.

Live

Another reason for introducing samba-inspired beats to their songs was because the sound translates so well live.

"I started listening to samba and calypso and then we kind of incorporated it into Jump in the Pool," MacFarlane explained. "Then when we played live we brought the Brazilian drummers along with us and we had the dancers.

"It feels like it compliments our music really well. It's a spectacle live and people can really enjoy it."