For Breakfast are a seven-headed musical monster creating vast, sprawling songs which loosely fit into the realm of post-rock, albeit which a whole lot extra thrown in.
The band’s second EP, Trapped in the Big Room, was released into the world last month, following 2020’s offering Songs in the Key of O. Over the course of just four tracks, Trapped in the Big Room is fit to burst with musicality, as sweeping, ethereal soundscapes duel with chaotic riffery and moments of intimacy which showcase the breadth of the septet’s talents.
We had a chat with For Breakfast about their delectable new collection of tracks.
Recording for the new EP took place in Old Jet, which is a disused cold war airbase with a track record for UFO activity, has this set a precedent for future recording spaces?
It’s certainly set a bar for strange vibes that we’ll struggle to keep clearing. We’ve had to add columns for Uncanniness and Whimsy to our prospective studio criteria.
Which artists were the band listening to whilst putting Trapped in the Big Room together? We imagine the For Breakfast playlist has some pretty broad perimeters
Extremely broad, yes! Impossible to answer this accurately without turning into a listicle, but Richard Dawson, Do Make Say Think, Caroline Polachek, Protomartyr and Fishmans are probably a good cross-section of the stuff we were listening to.
As a septet who filter a thousand influences into an experimental, vaguely post-rock-shaped outcome, do Black Country, New Road become a tiresome albatross of a comparison?
Yes, and you’re only maybe the fifth person to actually do it. But we love what they do. We clearly share influences and have a similarly level approach to writing, plus we both have charming saxophonists so it’s hardly an upsetting comparison.
How do For Breakfast undertake the task of refining 7-person jams into concise tracks? Is it a case of somebody taking the reins and playing the role of conductor?
It depends on the song and its origins – usually the person who brought the germ that the song develops from has a guiding role in shaping the jams. But we generally come to a consensus on where it should be guided to by discussing it as a group, and everything else is happy accident.
We can’t wait to catch a gig, how will the tracks on the new EP mutate into a live performance? Is it a wildly different approach to your recording sessions?
Thanks! Since the songs are written live, they’re more or less the same in a live setting, just a bit more frantic and slightly pared down since there are a few studio textures we have on record that we can’t replicate live.
Where will these new tracks be showcased?
We celebrated the EP release at the Waiting Room on 1st June with our wonderfully talented friends leather.head and nomorewillroam, then we played in Bristol at Crofters Rights on 3rd June, again with leather.head plus the giants of improv Iceman Furniss Quartet. We’ve got a few more shows in the pipeline from then over Summer and Autumn. No more festivals though so if anyone has a seven-sided hole in their lineup hit us up!
For Breakfast’s new EP Trapped in the Big Room is out now
