Rolling Stone have interviewed the team behind the forthcoming album
David Bowie’s forthcoming album, ★, or Blackstar, had some unlikely inspiration from a Californian rapper.
“We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar,” ★ producer Tony Visconti told Rolling Stone. “We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn’t do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock & roll.”
LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy also ended up playing percussion on two of the forthcoming album’s tracks – though his original role was meant to be production-based.
“At one point we were talking about three producers for the album: David, James and myself,” explains Visconti. “[Murphy] was there for a brief time, but he had his own projects to go off to.” , “His role was never really defined”, adds drummer Guiliana. He brought in some synths and some percussion and had a ton of ideas.”
Rest of the feature discusses the band’s approach to “whatever Bowie threw at them, from Krautrock to hip-hop to pop to jazz”, which album track has allusions to ISIS, and addresses the rumours about Bowie’s failing health. See that here, and see the stunning short film that accompanies ★ featured in our roundup of the videos of the week here.
