L.A. confidential
von Dave Jaffer am 26.6.2008
TV On The Radio whisper a few hints about the new album... and we're still as confused as ever
When our call gets connected, TV On The Radio vocalist Tunde Adebimpe is scarfing down food on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles. Nearby, a bikini model vigorously promotes a Toyota Scion. Steps away, two pedigreed pooches occupy a Mercedes parked outside an upscale dog boutique and all-natural "Barkery." There's also talk of something that sounds like "Café Polar Monkey."
"Bukowski and David Lynch are the two people who got this place, and David Lynch still kind of gets this place for what it is. It's a real creepy funhouse," he says. "I've got to stop looking at it so I can finish my lunch."
Speaking of locales, let's bring up a more pertinent one: Montreal, where Brooklyn, New York's TVOTR will make their first-ever appearance at the Jazz Fest (and, if we're lucky, where they'll play material from their forthcoming record, which Adebimpe suggests will come out this fall).
"I'm always really excited to play in Montreal," he says. "[The Montreal Jazz Fest], to me, is more interesting than a bunch of festivals that we'll play because I know there will be different sorts of music going on. I know that there will be opportunities to talk to people who aren't the traditional rock band or indie rock band structure, and that's always way more interesting."
Considering the phenomenal differences between, say, TVOTR's debut release OK Calculator and their most recent album, 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain, it seems inevitable that the band's new material will digress from where
we last found them. Asked if that theory is valid, Adebimpe thinks long and hard before speaking.
"I'm about to deliver to you the worst analogy in the world," he finally says. "If a kid who's doing back flips cracks his neck, and gets a couple of concussions a few times, and then eventually lands it, he's kind of like, 'Okay, cool. I learned how to do that my way, and now I'm going to expand on that.'
"I feel we kind of got past the phase where we were clumsily bumping into a lot of shit. Some of my favourite stuff was made that way, but I feel now there's a little more ninjutsu in what we're doing. Just from the stuff that we have so far, it's just not going to be like that last record, which I guess is kind of the point."