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Touching Bass: The Internet

Chatting about Jamiroquai, aliens and URLs before The Internet break into some jams for Touching Bass

Syd The Kyd and Matt Martians are the neo-soul loving bredrins of Odd Future called, The Internet. They've known each other since Myspace was a thing and their first album, Purple Naked Ladies, saw them dive into some of the coolest R&B we've heard in yonks. Their second outing, Feel Good, came out last week and now they're a five-piece consisting of old friends and previous collaborators that played as Mac Miller's touring band. We've already dissected the DNA of their record, down to what food they were munching in the studio. But we also wanted to hear what tracks they'd glue next to each other for a Touching Bass. See what they had to say about aliens, lasers and what their favourite URLs are before starting your weekend the way The Internet would.

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Noisey: How are you guys? Happy belated birthday Matt.

Matt: Thanks man, that means a lot.

You been up to much today?

Matt: Pretty much the same as what you’ve been doing man. Listening to some Jamiroquai.

Can never go wrong with some Jay Kay. You're called The Internet but what’s your favourite URL?

Matt: My favourite website is browncardigan.com. It’s a random website full of memes. And imnotatoy.com – it’s quite a similar thing with just funny shit. Internet-band.com because that’s where our music is, of course.

Syd: To be honest I don’t really get on the internet unless it’s to promote our music. I don’t really have a favourite website unless Twitter counts. I’m not really interested in that many current affairs that are online.

Cool. Are you guys into astrology at all?

Matt: I actually am. I'm not into too many of the technicalities but I'm into nebulas. Do you mean zodiac signs and shit?

The whole thing.

Matt: I believe in it lightly because I grew up a Baptist in terms of religion but lately my religion has been more like the universe. I feel like that’s actual fact and we can see it. I believe in astrology to a certain extent but I don’t believe in it to the point where people don’t want to be friends with somebody or not talk to somebody simply because of what star sign you were born under.

How about aliens?

Matt: I'm not selfish enough to think that we’re the only ones. You know, take a speck out of the sky and there’s trillions of stars and planets within that speck. I'm not gonna be naïve and think that there’s not aliens because who knows. There’s no way I can say no, put it like that.

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Syd: A lot of things when it comes to not having factual proof, I don’t not believe it. I'm indecisive. I'm not gonna lie, it’s scary.

What’s your studio space like?

S: It’s been a learning experience. For one, it’s amazing to have what I have at my studio. It’s amazing that we were able to pull it off, me and my partner. I’m blessed that she trusts me enough to put her mum’s stuff to use and to let me use because we recorded almost our whole album at the new studio. I’m learning a lot. Business, taxes and things like timing and responsibility. I'm meeting some cool people along the way too.

I see. So who were the main influences for the album?

Matt: Jamiroquai…

Syd: Justin Timberlake, Sleepy Brown, Kelis, N*E*R*D for sure.

Matt: Isley Brothers…

Syd: Marvin Gaye.

Matt: Definitely a lot of live sounding stuff.

There’s Latin on “Sunset” too…

Syd: Patrick threw in some Latin, Brazilian samba kinda vibe into it and I wanted that in there because I grew up on Sergio Mendes and it reminded me of that. We ended up getting Yuna to sing some Brazilian kinda jazz type stuff over it and it was really awesome. That’s one of the more uplifting songs on the album.

And how much effect did Chad Hugo from the Neptunes have on the album?

Matt: That definitely made us more confident to put it out, definitely.

Syd: To be honest, he did help us out with another song that was gonna go on the album but we cut it.

Matt: We might still use it later on.

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Syd: He only played that one part on “Dont’cha” as far as the album goes but he was really supportive with wanting to help us mix it, coming to the video shoot. We were scared to ask him and Mike [Einziger] but he’s been really awesome.

Any finally, are there any non-musical influences?

Matt: The ocean, definitely. For me it was aquatics because on the last album I was really influenced by space and nebulas, that type of shit. On this album I was more inspired by the ocean. I can’t really explain why but I was really inspired by sea life and stuff. When I was first making the songs, I would go on Netflix and watch ocean documentaries on mute.

Syd: I was reading, but I think pressure more than anything. I don’t like to do anything under pressure. Neither of us do when it comes to art but when it came to crunch time, the stuff that I ended up spitting out, I really fell in love with. It worked out.

The Internet's second album, Feel Good, is out now via Odd Future Records and available to purchase here

Follow Errol on Twitter @errol_and

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