A promising development came in mid-2013, with the release of back-to-back singles ‘Mercy’ and ‘Million Miles’, but hopes were quieted somewhat by an accompanying announcement, which explained these tracks weren’t attached to an LP. However, re-grouping without the imposing task of making a whole record proved effective for reviving the band’s collaborative zeal. Hence, the development of Seeds proceeded almost immediately.
The record has been in the hands of TV on the Radio’s many hungry adherents for a couple of weeks now, and the band’s front man Tunde Adebimpe isn’t afraid to voice his excitement. “When we were making it and when it was finished, we knew that it impressed us,” he says. “It’s a nice thing to listen to a record and almost feel like you didn’t make it because you like listening to it so much.”
TV on the Radio began as a project for Adebimpe and guitarist/producer Dave Sitek, back in 2002. The band’s major breakthrough – creatively, critically and commercially – was its second LP, 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain, which was also the first recording to feature the complete five-piece lineup.Since that time, there’s been no decided bandleader; multiple members receive songwriting credit on each album and each individual’s exact role isn’t easily defined (for instance, drummer Jaleel Bunton is just as likely contribute guitar to recordings as guitarists Sitek and Kyp Malone).
“That wouldn’t work, I don’t think,” Adebimpe explains. “I feel like whoever tries to be the leader of the band would find themselves alone very, very quickly. During the recording and writing process, everybody throws in what they can. Whatever sticks makes it in and whatever everyone decides ‘that’s just not really working’ gets tossed away.”
Stepping forward without one fifth of their established personnel could’ve potentially upset the band’s fruitful dynamic. But during the development of Seeds, the mutually contributive format prevailed.
“When you’re doing something for so long, you recognise dynamics within the band,” Adebimpe says. “Whenever I’m writing a demo, very rarely will I write a song that’s completely fleshed out and just say ‘Ok, you play this, you play that.’ That’s not utilising our connection between each other. I’ll leave spaces when I know that Kyp’s going to put something there. I don’t know exactly what he’s going to put there, but that’s his zone and he’ll round that out. And Jaleel will do this and Dave will do that and everyone kind of knows that without me saying anything. “Collaborating with anybody on anything is going to have its moments,” he adds. “You’re not the same person. That’s the thing that makes it so great – you can bounce things off of each other and it ends up being this thing that’s representative of all of you, hopefully.”
Looking through TV on the Radio’s back catalogue, on each record the band’s generated an unmistakable sonic presence, while continuing to uncover compositional variations. Something conducive to this achievement is the band members’ commitment to spurring each other on.
“We always call each other out for not pushing stuff far enough,” Adebimpe says. “If somebody makes something and you know it can be better and they want to leave it the way it is, that’s when it gets a little like ‘what are you doing?’ That’s when it gets a little big brother and little brother- ish, where you try to bully someone into being better than they’re letting themselves be.” Attempting to succinctly describe what distinguishes Seeds from its predecessors, words such as ‘immediate’, ‘streamline, and ‘aerated’ spring to mind. To be more specific, the record comprises tracks like ‘Could You’, which features a jangly, eastern inflected guitar line and a positively infectious power-pop chorus.
While the record’s now circulating through the public domain, speaking during a pre- release US tour, Adebimpe reported that the new songs were “going over really well” live, causing audience members to “sing along to something they’d never heard before, which was an awesome feeling.” This immediate embrace is an indication of the melodically incisive character of several of the album’s tracks. As for whether the band felt nervous about satisfying external demands with Seeds, that’s never a pressing concern.
“It’s not that we don’t care what anyone else thinks,” Adebimpe says, “but it doesn’t really have a bearing on what we think about what we’ve done. Just the fact that we can still do it and want to do it, we’re already miles ahead of any sort of expectations that might come from the outside. “That’s not to say I hope people don’t like it. I’m really excited to share this record and to play it live. I’m really excited for people to hear the whole record, we just like the entire thing.”
