Copenhagen based three-piece Lust for Youth are due to release their most dramatic, emotive and gin-soaked LP t date. With melancholy lyrics, persistent 909 beats and reverb-laced guitar motifs, the group’s forthcoming album Compassion strikes the converging point between dejection and pure bliss. Originally the solo project of Hannes Norrvide, Lust For Youth’s sound have developed from darker, introverted atmospheres to uninhibited synth-pop/post-punk for the international platform. Hannes, Malthe and Loke give us an insight into the characteristics of Compassion, their ongoing collaboration with Soho Rezanejad, and their 140-character thoughts.
Arguably, @Lust4Youth was the best Twitter account of 2015, with tweets documenting relationships, Hugh Grant, wifi/iphone dependency, vegan MDMA, etc. Do you feel your Twitter persona has filtered into Compassion?
Hannes: Probably without intention. I can feel that twitter has changed my life, now all my thoughts are tweets.
Malthe: I think so yes though the humours was around before we discovered that we had a twitter account. I read all our tweets before falling asleep last night. It was overwhelming.
Loke: Do we have a twitter?
There was a significant leap between Perfect View and International, in texture and production. What, for you, is the notable progression from International to Compassion
H: Compassion continues from what International introduced with atmosphere, texture and production, but Compassion is way more well constructed. It introduced different feelings, and I think you can hear we evolved our craftsmanship and how we work together.
L: Compassion rhymes with fashion.
‘Armilda’, on International, featured Soho Rezanejad as the sole vocalist, and now Compassion includes Hannes and Soho duet ‘Display’. How did it come to be that you would sing together? Were the lyrics always intended to be a duet?
H: The recipe for making a good song amazing is to have a woman’s vocal, everyone loves that, and Soho has an amazing voice. Yes it was, it was the first song we recorded for the album, right after International.
M: Soho always comes up with her own parts, lyrics and melodies. She is fast and determined and just an incredible woman to work with.
Compassion has a noticeable production choice to position the vocals higher in the mix, compared to past Lust For Youth records. What encouraged this decision on production?
H: The MDMA went to our heads I guess.
M: I think it’s about us being more confident about writing good tunes. The production is to me a rather natural progression from the last record, a step further.
Who would you want to remix songs from Compassion?
H: Vangelis (if he did remixes)
M: Burial
L: Faithless
First Hate are due to support Lust For Youth on the upcoming tour. With notable similarities in your approach and aesthetic, how, if at all, would you say creatively influence each other?
M: I like FH and we are friends but I don’t see any similarities really musically. I might not see the forest for the trees but to me we have totally different vibes. It’s like saying any Copenhagen band with guitar, bass and drums have something in common.
L: They are better dancers than we are.
Croatian Amor & Lust for Youth’s ‘Sister (Club Mix)’ single saw the amalgam of ambient industrial with spoken narrative, melody driven lead synthesisers and eurodance beat. If it were to happen, what would a Lust For Youth and Scandinavian Star (Malther Fischer) collaboration sound like?
H: ‘Sister’ was a collaboration between LFY (when it was just me) and Croatian Amor, when we started to work as a three-piece we did a reworked version of ‘Sister’, so I guess that is how it sounds like.
M: ‘Sister (Club Mix)’ was the result of the first day we ever worked together and Soho came by and did the speech. It was us getting to know each other. You might say that all our solo projects combined it Compassion.