Sometimes, the more disgusted the band gets with its own output, the better. Edwards finds it useful. “You just have to move forward,” he says, “even when it doesn’t feel good, because this is what we do. We make music, and it doesn’t always feel special or magical. And then sometimes, what doesn’t feel good, you go back and listen to it and you think, ‘Wait a minute, that’s actually completely valid; we could pursue that idea.’ And then sometimes what you were excited about at the time, you listen to it the next day and you go, ‘This is awful; I never want to listen to it again. I never want to think even I’m capable of writing something like this again.'”
Atmosphere also plays a vital role in the band’s experimentation. “The traditional instrumentation of music is never interesting to me,” Edwards says. “I don’t respond to it. We try and use bass and guitar to create sounds that don’t necessarily sound like those instruments, to have a chaotic element but also have a strong melody and something that we can actually play again and again.
“It’s not like we have these little pop gems and pour all this chaos all over them. The chaos is an integral part from the ground up. I like when I hear a sound that’s out of control and chaotic and a little bit dissonant and strange in some way. I like to try and find either some kind of melody in there I can hear, or I like the battle of trying to put the vocal or another instrument over it that makes it more accessible to the ear.
“Of course,” he continues, “you can make a recording that’s just a photograph of a band live, but if you don’t add some production, that won’t work, because a band in a room playing through a loud PA creates an emotional response. On a recording, if you want to create the same kind of intensity, you have to employ little tricks.”
For Autolux, these little tricks tend to be very labor intensive. “It’s time consuming to get these ambient elements,” Edwards explains. “For us, the song just doesn’t even sound like the song, or doesn’t sound finished, until those things are there. Those kinds of things, which might seem so inconsequential, make a huge difference to us. And it might take you four or five hours to record one little transitional sound, just to get it to feel right.”
Autolux has already begun touring in support of Transit Transit. By the time the album finally comes out, many listeners will have already heard the new songs in person.
Fans are, in a sense, lucky to hear the music in this order. This way, the album experience becomes something to look forward to rather than taken for granted. Of course, Autolux doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, so fans might as well savor the wait.