Confidence Man have returned with the unveiling of their third studio album, 3AM (LA LA LA), sharing the news alongside a bold new single titled I CAN’T LOSE YOU.
In a press release, the dance-pop duo, explained that they started working on the record with a vision to “dehumanise pop music and make it over-the-top and ridiculous again”, but eventually shifted their sights to classic UK rave. “We wanted to revisit those sounds and then add pop hooks and vocals to them,” Janet Planet and Sugar Bones wrote in a joint statement. “I feel like that hasn’t really been done before, besides [by] The Prodigy.”
Alongside instrumentalists Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild (the latter of whom also produced the record), Planet and Bones minted 3AM at Pony Studios in east London, where their sessions would reportedly “go on all night”. Planet noted of their creative process: “We pretty much wrote every single song when we were wrecked. We’d get blasted and stay up till 9am coming up with music, but we noticed that 3am was the hottest time for when we were on it and the best ideas were coming out.”
Planet also confirmed the album’s title as a nod to one of her and Bones’ biggest inspirations, British acid-house group The KLF, and their song 3am Eternal. KLF member Jimmy Cauty even worked with Confidence Man, and has a remix of the new album’s title track in the bag. “I don’t think he’d been to a gig in 25 years and he came to see us at the Roundhouse in London,” Planet said. “He’s been mentoring us a bit ever since.”
Aside from The KLF and The Prodigy, Confidence Man drew inspiration from the likes of Groove Armada, Leftfield and Underworld. As noted by Bones, “All those classic UK rave acts have always been popular in Australia. Prodigy were my fave band growing up when I was in my early teens.”
Planet added, though, that she and Bones didn’t aim to merely replicate those bands’ styles: “We didn’t know any of the rules [of the UK rave genre]. These sounds make their way into your scene but then everyone repurposes them because no one understands the context. No one had ever been to a warehouse rave where we’re from.”
3AM (LA LA LA) will be out on October 18 via I OH YOU – head here to pre-order it, and take a look at the music video for I CAN’T LOSE YOU, directed by Zac Dov Wiesel, below:
