Start Listening To: Free Love
Celestial electronic pop duo Lewis and Suzi Cook, AKA Free Love, are set to release their new album INSIDE on 24th February on Lost Map.
Pop songs and esoteric experiments, acoustic and electronic instrumentation, lyrics in French and English, the Masculine and the Feminine, all side-by-side—FKA Happy Meals, Free Love, and their music are a purposeful study in duality. Their ferocious psychedelic odysseys have been erupting from Glasgow since 2013 via prestigious labels like Night School and Optimo Records, making them paragons of the city's cross-pollinating DIY culture.
It results in the 2023 release of Free Love's most recent album, INSIDE, on Lost Map. A pounding and blissed-out meditation on life and death, community and seclusion, worlds both outside and inside, its ten tracks of house-quaking acid pop, celestial drones, and yogic devotionals were written and recorded at the band's Glasgow home studio during and after the lockdowns of 2020–2021, and finished just before Lewis and Suzi's son Echo's birth in the summer of 2022.
How did it all start?
Me and Suzi both grew up in separate towns in the countryside of south Scotland. We met just before we both left school and fell in love. I'd been making music by myself and in different bands but it was only when Suzi did a course on analog recording at the Green Door Studio that we decided to start making some music together. Since then it's become part of our life.
We love your new album, INSIDE. Can you tell us how this album come about?
We'd started working on some of the foundations of the record even before lockdown but it mostly started to take proper form when we were locked away. We'd have these weekly sessions with improvised electronics with only a little bit of preparation beforehand (maybe programming a couple of sequences or something like that) and then we'd do these live broadcasts to people who tuned in from all over the world with the live music combined with a yoga class. Just before lockdown we'd qualified as yoga teachers as well so it was nice to be able to share that practice as well as sounds during that time. Some of the melodies and sounds on the record came from seeds planted in those sessions.
You sing in French on a couple of tracks. Can you talk about that side of your musical persona?
It's not so much a different persona as another colour in the spectrum of my persona in general. Sometimes what I want to sing would be nonsense in English but works in French and vice versa so why not open up the pallet and use all the shades available?
How has your approach to music changed since the pandemic?
We've started working on a new record and I think the hangover of the pandemic has made us feel the importance of wanting to collaborate and connect creativity. I think when the right connections are made creatively it can definitely create a kind of synergy. We've started working with Pabs Debussy on percussion and drums which we're really excited about. He's already playing with us live now but we're looking forward to getting into the studio and recording some sounds together.
How do you produce your music?
All our music is recorded, mixed and produced in our home studio, Full Ashram Celestial Garden by us. We've built up a collection over the years of doing this of some vintage and modern gear that we love and we can just bunker in and create.
What inspires your music?
Love, confusion and 1970s esoteric softcore porn mags.
Is there a question you’re never asked but would like to answer?
What do you think of Sylvan Esso calling their record 'Free Love' right after playing with you and then writing a song called 'Echo Party' right after you've named your son Echo?
Which one of your songs would you take to your grave with you and why?
Probably 'Bones' because the song is about that.
What advice would you give anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to you?
Stand down motherfucker. No - I'd just say whatever you do, ENJOY YOURSELF!
What album are you still listening to from when you were younger, and why is it still important to you?
Slipknot's self-titled album is still on occasional rotation from way back. I also got into Autechre quite young around 14 and weirdly found it was all I could listen to around the birth of our son Echo last year. My formative years were spent listening to a lot of experimental and extreme music and I think my love of pop music kind of developed properly a little bit later so it's a bit all over the place. Kate Bush is still big in these parts - Suzi had a VHS of all her music videos that her and her sisters would watch when they were wee.
You guys seem to embrace the esoteric. Are there any far-out practices you would recommend for 2023?
If you haven't tried Yoga Nidra then definitely seek it out. It's a practice that involves a guided meditation through the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep. We've been running some special events in Glasgow involving this practice and tuned sinewave drones, sounds and music and its been really really special.
What do you hate right now?
The fact that we're on the 3rd month in a row without any sunlight in Glasgow.
What do you love right now?
Making my son laugh.
What’s the best gig you’ve ever played?
We've been lucky enough to play quite a few really special shows. Playing to an audience swimming in a hot spring in the Azores was really fun - Glastonbury Beat Hotel was another belter - Crowd surfing with Otoboke Beaver (who we'd just met) in Austin was a great show - hard to beat playing at up in the Isle of Eigg as well.
What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
The meme account La Meme Young posted something very particular that was almost word for word what I've been saying to people for a while and was so funny to realise that someone else (and probably many people) experienced in the same way: I can't do the meme format any justice as it was kind of visual but the gist of it was 'The feeling when you have your first exposition of noise music as a 12 year old at the beginning of the Slipknot gig'. That was amazing. They played around 10 minutes of harsh noise and warped voices and it was genuinely terrifying. Thats jsut what popped into my head now- don't know if its the best gig I've ever been to but definitely one that had a lasting effect.
What artists/bands should we be listening to that we’re probably not?
I find it hard to know how popular certain bands are already but I hadn't heard of Folie 2 until recently and we really loved their record from last year. I think they're German.
What comes next in the Free Love story?
We're developing the Full Ashram Resonant Module which is an offshoot where we explore more celestial sounds - got some big plans for this. For Free Love, we're going to be back in the studio and work on the next record as well as playing shows out this summer and autumn. Come see us.