How was the album Cocoa Sugar by the band Young Fathers recorded? Full story...

"Cocoa Sugar" is the third studio album by Scottish indie band Young Fathers. It was released in March 2018 on the Ninja Tune label. Playful, challenging the classic Young Fathers sound - it reflects an unorthodox approach to studio recording.

Ten years after forming in Edinburgh, in 2008 Young Fathers carved out a niche as an unclassifiable band, blurring the boundaries between soul, hip-hop, dub, gospel, krautrock and punk. Their Mercury Prize-winning third album marks another step forward in their development, offering the listener some rather dark, frenetic music, with plenty of chips and a truly magical sound...

About the band: who are Young Fathers?

At the time of their meeting, the band members were about 14 years old... They met at a hip-hop night for under-16s at the Bongo Club (one of the clubs in the Scottish capital). Two years later they started performing under the name Threestyle. All of them - Alloysius Massaqua, Caius Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings - sing and rap. Hastings also handles most of their acting and production.

The boys made their first rudimentary recordings as teenagers in Hastings' bedroom.

"I had a pre-flood computer! Basically it could only run one software - eJay. Everything was terribly slow... I also had an Argos karaoke machine and we just played and sang at the same time, always one take at a time. When we got the MiniDisc, it was a great achievement!"

Hastings also recalled the three of them gathering around one microphone to add vocals... Interesting times!

First experience

The trio's first experience in a professional recording studio came when they signed Threestyle to a production contract and entered The Lighthouse Studios in Edinburgh.

"There was a Yamaha O2R (digital mixer) and a lot of good stuff like old Hammond organs and a Korg synthesiser...," says Hastings. "But I think we all realised we didn't like that environment. Personally, I hated the vocal booth because it was separate. It's that thing where: 'I'm going to go through and do my vocals now.' A lot of our compositions are based as-is on what's going on in the room around us..."

When they became Young Fathers, they met their mentor/co-producer Tim London, a former Soho band member who had scored a transatlantic hit with "Hippychick" in 1990. London granted Young Fathers access to his basement home studio, and the band laid down strict mandates to record one track a day. The result was their mixtape / mini-album Tape One, recorded in a week and instantly released online!

"Tape One made us realise that we could do what we wanted to do! Because we emphasised quantity over quality, we couldn't waste time setting up material. Tim and I designed the room in advance so that when everyone came in, we didn't have to do any extra routing. Everything is ready to go!" - says Hastings.

 

"It was a pretty simple setup," he continues. "We used a Tube-Tech preamp and an old Sanken pencil mic that we've used on every album since. For some reason that particular mic was perfect - for drums, percussion, vocals..."

Early records

A hallmark of Young Fathers' early work is "I Heard," a lo-fi soul track from the album Tape Two, built on bits from Korg Mini Pops.

"It's great!" says Hastings. "It's amazing how these drum machines have a pre-created balance. If you try to programme something similar, it doesn't sound the same. It's obviously a matter of wiring..."

"I Heard" was recorded live in a room: drum machine, organ and even parts of the vocals.

"The only thing we really overlaid was some of the ambient sounds..."

Room atmosphere, vocal improvisations and casual chatter are recurring features of Young Fathers tracks, often secretly recorded by Hastings at the start of a session.

"The microphone goes on as soon as everyone walks in," he says. "So I can take over the room! In fact, a lot of tunes are born instantly...."

About the album Cocoa Sugar

With their new album Cocoa Sugar, the band decided to try to take a more "linear" and accessible approach to their sound.

"Being a left-field, weird and yet wonderful band... after a while it just gets tiresome. We had to feel uncomfortable again. And the only way that seemed obvious at the time was to use less noise, sparse beats, and dry, open vocals. It was uncomfortable at first, but you have to get used to it, adjust your ears to it..."

The introductory sessions for Cocoa Sugar began in Los Angeles in the home studio of producer Dave Sytek (a member of TV On The Radio and producer of Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Foals), who eventually co-wrote the songs "Turn" and "Picking You."

"Basically, Dave reached out," Hastings says. "He has a wonderful tiny house in the hills in Los Angeles where he writes music. He just has that kind of environment...it's like an open house! We got the message that he wanted us to just come and mingle. We don't really hang out. We just want to keep making music..."

 

"Dave used to come in and pick up the pieces. We're pretty reserved, so we don't need an extra person in the room... But when someone is present, it's good because they're outside the group and can give sound advice. Dave is like that. He's just a great guy that you really want to work with..."

Among the instruments the Young Fathers had to mess around with were a Mellotron M4000D and various pedal effects. However, it was the Neumann U47 microphone that was the biggest discovery for Hastings:

"The Sanken mic has always worked for us. And any other microphone, condenser or whatever, never suited us in terms of vocals. Then I discovered that the U47 was the only microphone that could be called an exception..."

Album concept

The first product of these sessions was the song "Only God Knows", a standalone single featured on the soundtrack to the film T2: Trainspotting.

For much of Cocoa Sugar's tracking, the band set up in their new basement studio in Edinburgh's Leith neighbourhood. By the way: the colourful building was once a brothel.

"There are these weird rooms with mirrors on the ceiling," Hastings remarks with a smile. "Washing rooms and secret compartments and stuff. But the basement is basically one big room. Everything's all switched on and connected. It's about the same setup we've always liked! Everything available at your fingertips!"

Some tracks contain live percussion, although recorded in a typically peculiar manner.

"Our drums are PVC coated. We did that to give them a dead sound," says Hastings.

When it came to handling the vocals, Young Fathers opted to be deliberately minimalist:

"We kind of took away the reverb on this album," says Hastings. "We were trying to achieve a more sparse and dry sound. You have to kind of break through the barrier of what would normally get you comfortable, like reverb..."

 

"The old tape in our Space Echo sometimes jams and warps, and I like that. But even the Space Echo on this album I had to use sparingly. On previous albums, I literally ran the entire mix, or instrumental, through Space Echo. Some tracks are actually just the sound from the Space Echo tape, because it distorts the sound in a weird way... We deliberately didn't change the tape on it for a while."

 

"It's always been hard for us to figure out what we're trying to do. Some people think we're a hip-hop band, but we don't think so... A lot of the things we like are frequencies that people usually try to mute. Like, there's a lot of harsh mid frequencies and people hate them. In our case, they're the ones that make us react. As for Cocoa Sugar, there's less harshness in this album than in the previous ones... This album was made in a way rejecting what we thought of ourselves after the tour with the last album. I think that's what makes it what it is. You never know what you want to do until you start working on it. I think that'll be the case next time. I have no idea... And I don't want to know!"