Sending shivers straight down the spine from the very first hummed bar, SpaceAcre delivers nothing short of an immersive sonic sound bath in their brand new single, “Chemicals”. Infused with the duo’s signature haunting melodies and honey-suckled vocals, “Chemicals” is an enthralling effort that feels just as intense as it is cathartic. Building to a climax that makes the mind float and the body sink, “Chemicals” effortlessly plays with its listener’s sense of reality — an effect not so dissimilar to the addictions they speak of within the track’s compelling lyrics.
Speaking further on the track, Phoebe explains, “It’s about how chemicals can affect someone’s brain, whether they are naturally occurring or not. It has a multi-layered meaning as we all have stuff that we’re addicted to. Often when writing, we’ll be thinking about a subject, maybe something quite personal, and I’ll just get Jas to rant about it for a while. I’ll then note down the interesting bits and we write the lyrics from there”.
As the first offering of their upcoming EP, “Chemicals”, along with its ominous music video is just a small glimpse at the soul-shaking rising of SpaceAcre. Ahead of this, we sat with SpaceAcre to discuss their journey so far, the making of the single and what they hope to achieve next. Head below to stream “Chemicals” and the full interview now…
Hey SpaceAcre! How are you both doing? Where are we speaking to you from?
Hey Wonderland! We’re doing great thanks. We’re speaking to you from our studio in Leighton Buzzard, Jas’ home town.
Tell us about how you first met!
We were introduced in a pre-production session while working on another musical project. We got on really well and clicked musically straight away, but that was a long time before we thought about starting a band together.
At what point did you decide to start making music together?
After we’d known each other for a while, we started writing together, which happened quite organically, like at the end of a rehearsal or sending voice notes over WhatsApp. That led us to a songwriting camp in Normandy, France. While we were there we worked in a completely different way. We came out with this new sound and it didn’t feel like the project we were meant to be writing for at all, but we were really excited about it. And on the ferry on the way back to the UK, we decided to form a new band.
Phoebe: “I had been thinking about it for a few days and it felt like the right moment to ask Jas if she’d be up for starting a musical project together. She said she was.”
Jas: “Yeh, I’m a total over-thinker so I was freaking out in my head, but luckily I said “yes” out loud.”
Tell us about your creative process! How do you bring your ideas to fruition?
We write in lots of different ways, it changes with every song, but it’s always very collaborative and fluid. We’re not exactly sure who’s written what by the end of it. Sometimes we start with a musical idea, riff, bass line, a whole string section, sometimes it’s a melody, or a top line lyric. We like to mix it up and challenge ourselves. Sometimes we start with a concept that we know we want to write about – one of us will approach the other with an idea and say “I wanna write a song about this.”
Phoebe: “We’ll be thinking about a subject, maybe something quite personal, and I’ll just get Jas to rant about it for a while. I’ll then note down the interesting bits and we write the lyrics from there”.
Congratulations on the release of “Chemicals”! What were your intentions going into the making of this track?
Thanks so much! We’re so happy to be sharing it with the world. We wrote this song via a “Jas rant” and we knew we wanted to write a song about “Chemicals” in the brain, whether they are naturally occurring or not. It has a multi-layered meaning as we all have stuff that we’re addicted to. We felt like it would work really well on Rhodes (keys). It’s the last song we wrote for the record and we hadn’t written a song on keys for a while so we decided to start there and the song flowed really quickly – it felt like it almost wrote itself, which occasionally happens and it’s always really cool when it does. We wanted to track to sound epic, but also dreamy at the same time. We could hear early on what the production should be, even from the demo stage when it was just keys and vocals. As we were working on the track during COVID, it was all having to be recorded remotely and we were sending it back and forth between us and our producer, and having the different parts recorded in separate locations.
Who heard the track first once it was completed? What was their reaction like?
Jas: “It was my twin sister, Sarai, who we sent the song to first, and she loved it straight away. She sent over a whole load of voice notes explaining exactly why she liked it so much, which is always a great sign – she’s a very thorough human. Cos we’re identical twins and have similar musical influences and taste, we often use her ears as a filter to gauge whether something is good. It’s almost like I’m listening to the song with completely fresh ears.”
What do you hope people can take from it?
We hope people will relate to it. It’s partly about anxiety and not being able to sleep, which is something that affects a lot of people, and it’s also about our vices. Whatever internal battle you’re facing, hopefully you can connect with this song. We also hope that people will just enjoy the song and it will add to the soundtrack of their day.
What do you hope to achieve next?
We want to get out on the road with our band and play our new songs to as many people as possible. Performing live is one of our favourite parts of what we do and we haven’t had much of a chance to tour as SpaceAcre yet so that’s what we want to do next. Our next headline show is on October 25th at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney. We can’t wait for that one and more to come after.
Are there any aspects of your artistry you have yet to explore that you would like to?
Yes, there are many. Musically, the sky’s the limit. We’re always trying to push ourselves creatively and to collaborate with more and different types of artists and creators. There is a cinematic quality to this record, which called for us to start on more of a visual journey in this campaign, working with amazing directors, videographers and dancers. We’d like to explore that further going forwards and continue to work with people, who really inspire us. We also wanna explore how far we can push our live show – there’s a lot of scope there, which is really exciting.
And finally, where do you see yourselves in five years’ time?
Hopefully selling out big tours and continuing to make music that we’re really into. If we keep being authentic and stay a little out of our comfort zones, we should end up in the right place.
