The Rapture Reveal New Album

It's been three long years since the release of the Rapture's last record, Echoes, which also happened to be Pitchfork's favorite album of 2003. But come September 12 (September 4 in the UK), the wait will finally end, with the release of the NYC dance-punk group's second LP, Pieces of the People We Love. In the UK, it will be preceded by the single "Get Myself Into It", which comes out August 21...but wait! You can hear it on the band's MySpace page starting today.
The album comes out on Vertigo Records in the UK, and Motown/Universal in America. Yes, we now live in a world where the Rapture are on Motown.
Pitchfork spoke to band members Vito Roccoforte and Gabriel Andruzzi about Pieces yesterday. They revealed that in addition to "Get Myself Into It", the album will also feature the title track, the previously leaked song "W.A.Y.U.H." (which stands for "Woo, All Right, Yeah, Uh Huh", in case you were curious), and "The Devil". They haven't finished working out the final tracklist, but they're looking to make the album 50 minutes and 10 tracks long.
When asked if Pieces bears any resemblance to Echoes, Roccoforte responded, "Yes and no. I think the band has a distinct identity. The last album was an eclectic record. I think this one is a little tighter. With Echoes, we really stretched out a lot and tried a bunch of different things. I think on this one, we didn't limit ourselves, but we were able to take a lot of different influences and ideas and just tighten them up and, I feel, execute them a little better."
Production work on Pieces was done by the pairing of Brits Ewan Pearson and Paul "Phones" Epworth together, as well as Danger Mouse. "It was kind of a long process," Andruzzi said of deciding which producers to use. "We brainstormed and went through a lot of names of people that we were interested in. Ewan is someone we'd always wanted to work with in some capacity, so we asked if he and Paul would be up for working together. We did one track to see if it was going to feel right, and it felt really right, so we did it. Danger Mouse is someone who came up well over a year ago. Before the Gorillaz album. We didn't even know that was what he was doing. We wanted to try a different approach.
"It was kind of a surprise, once we got into the studio with everybody, to see how that dynamic, that relationship was going to work. But at the same time, before we went into the studio, we had an idea of what we wanted the record to be. We'd been writing songs for months. We had 30 complete songs, and we whittled it down to 20 songs that we actually liked."
Roccoforte added, "The producers are all really talented people. They were able to see things in it that you might not see. They were good filters for all the songs.
"It was a really nice process. I actually really enjoyed it. In the past, it's been kind of painful. I think a lot of it goes back to that we spent a year where we just wrote. We had a lot of time to creatively explore and sort through a lot of stuff and a lot of songs. So when we went into the studio we kind of had this huge body of work to pick from, and the stuff was a lot more thought out a lot more fully than other times we've gone into the studio. That helped the whole process."
As for why the band decided not to work with the DFA, who helmed Echoes and its breakout single, "House of Jealous Lovers", both Andruzzi and Roccoforte agreed it was due to scheduling conflicts, not any sort of falling-out, as has been rumored. "There's no bad blood," Roccoforte said.
The Rapture plan to tour extensively in the fall, but for now, they have only three dates scheduled, including a pair of appearances at Japan's Summer Sonic Festival. "I'm excited to play with Daft Punk," Roccoforte said. "We're on the same stage as them. They've been one of the bands I've always really, really wanted to play with. I didn't get to go to Coachella this year, but I saw the footage, like the cellphone footage, and even that looked awesome."
We couldn't agree more.
And finally, we had to ask: Is there cowbell on the new album?
"There is a lot of cowbell," Roccoforte replied, laughing. "There's way more cowbell than there needs to be," Andruzzi added. "There's also a little wood block. There's even some congas." Roccoforte continued, "There's a lot of percussion on this album, but the cowbell is definitely front and center."
Woo! All Right! Yeah! Uh Huh!