Hot Motion Temples

• 1 Hot Motion 05:48
• 2 You're Either On Something 03:47
• 3 Holy Horses 03:05
• 4 The Howl 04:25
• 5 Context 03:40
• 6 The Beam 03:06
• 7 Not Quite The Same 05:12
• 8 Atomise 03:52
• 9 It's All Coming Out 03:48
• 10 Step Down 04:05
• 11 Monuments 04:27
• Total Runtime 45:15

Info for Hot Motion

It is one of the brilliant facets of recorded music that while it can frame forever in time one of humanity’s most fluid art forms, those captured sounds themselves can go on to become an active launchpad for the ideas, memories, emotions and feelings of those listening.

Returning with their third album, Hot Motion, Temples have not just provided a strong demonstration of this dual static/frenetic nature, but they’ve created a record that revels in this beautiful contradiction.

A brilliantly crafted, thoughtfully recorded collection, the album’s propulsive, seemingly immediate songs soon reveal an impressive depth of ideas and energy with subsequent listens because, as its title warns, Hot Motion is not a record that stands still. “I’m excited for people to experience these songs for the first time,” declares singer and guitarist James Bagshaw. “They are constructed in such a way that the album should feel relatively instantaneous, but we did not water down our creative ideas. Getting that balance can be hard, perhaps on the last record on some songs we used too many layers to create depth, but making this album we discovered that depth doesn’t simply come by layering things, it can come from the intensity of an idea.”

While proud of 2017’s electronically orchestrated Volcano, the trio – completed by bassist Tom Walmsley and guitarist Adam Smith – feel they have reconnected with the verve and spirit of their debut, 2014’s Sun Structures, although Hot Motion proves as unique and forward-thinking as any Temples album.

James Bagshaw, vocals, guitar
Thomas Walmsley, bass, vocals
Adam Smith, keyboards, guitar, vocals
Samuel Toms, drums

Temples
Looking like a West Coast psych band, Temples bear all the hallmarks of cosmic travellers. There’s the band name, for starters, there are track titles that sound like JG Ballard novels (Prisms, The Golden Throne, Sun Structures) and there’s the fact that they take incense sticks on the road with them. But if all of the above suggests Temples are backwards-lookin, think again. The Kettering four-piece’s music is a mix of scuzzy glam stomp, dreamy, 12-string-drenched folk-rock, droning psych and more – all given a 2013 spin. Retro is a dirty word.

“Psychedelic music has always been forward thinking,” says Tom. “It’s so easy to fall into that kind of revival band thing, but our aim is to reference these things and bring something completely new to it. A song like Sun Structures talks about something contemporary using old imagery and eastern religion. It isn’t a fictional work that people won’t be able to find anything in. And the fidelity of the sound alone says we’re doing something that couldn’t really be done before.”

Temples did, in fact, begin with a mutual love of music and mysticism. The four bonded over the writing of Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary, the films of Kenneth Anger, and the music of The Byrds rather than The Beatles (“They’re hazier and more interesting,” reasons Tom. “The Beatles give too much away; the Byrds make you work hard. It’s that quest to learn more and discover more.”).

Arriving back in Northamptonshire from their respective university cities, the band members’ far-out pursuits provided escape from life in a grey, English market town. “We were writing, recording, looking for work, not really knowing what to do,” says Tom. And the relative lack of excitement gives them more time to focus on the music. “It’s such an odd town really for the arts, because there’s nothing here,” says James. “There are artists in Kettering, but there’s no outlet for them.”

Made in Kettering, Temples’s first recording arrived in one technicolour burst in July 2012. The band recorded Shelter Song, put it on the internet, and set into motion an unstoppable chain of events that eventually saw them signed to Heavenly Records. That same track, a bouncy, psychedelic romp, was issued as their debut single – and quickly became as sought after as any of the vintage vinyl they individually lusted over. The 7″ now regularly fetches upwards of £100 on eBay.

One of the more surprising things about the track is the fact that, like all of Temples’ music, it was recorded at home, in the box-room of James’s house in Kettering, an end terrace with a blessedly forgiving neighbour. “I’m always apologising to him for the noise, but he says, ‘It’s not noise, it’s music,’” says James. The band aim for Jack Nietzche production on a DIY budget – and succeed. “It’s similar to Joe Meek – he used to record vocals in his bathroom in his flat on Holloway Road,” says Tom. “The way I see it, there aren’t any limitations any more,” says James. “If you know what you want to achieve, there’s always a way around it. With technology today there’s ways of emulating things that would have cost an arm and a leg years ago.”

The response to Shelter Song confirmed this. But there was a problem with the wave of interest it set in motion. The band were, technically, not yet a band, and they were being offered gigs before they even had a full line-up in place. So James and Tom recruited drummer Sam Toms and keyboard player Adam Smith, Kettering men both, and worked on making the intangible tangible. Quickly, they became an accomplished live prospect, playing gigs up and down the UK, hitting the festival circuit and even sharing a bill with The Rolling Stones at London’s Hyde Park in July 2013. For Record Store Day this year, they joined their Heavenly stable-mates for a memorable trip across the channel to Paris. Toy, Stealing Sheep and Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs were on board. “It was amazing. It was like a school trip of a different kind,” says James.

As well as The Stones, the band have caught the attention of a number of music’s biggest names. Johnny Marr has declared himself a fan (“And he’s obviously a huge ambassador of the 12-string, so it’s nice he’s picked up on us,” says Tom), Robert Wyatt professed his interest in a letter to the band’s management, Suede invited them on tour and Noel Gallagher came to see them perform in London. Some pressure for a new band, no? “Not really,” says James. “I’m quite confident about it – there’s not going to be any filler and no track’s going to sound similar to the next.”

Right now, the focus is on knuckling down and polishing off that debut album. Mixed by Claudius Mittendorfer (previous credits include The Mars Volta, Muse & Franz Ferdinand) in New York, it is nearly complete and set for release early in the new year. The band have high hopes for 2014. “I’m looking forward to people hearing some of the songs we’ve not played live,” says Tom. “Move With The Season is covered in 12-string but with this almost ‘90s-like looped beat in the background going on, and three-part harmonies on a huge scale. It’s The Byrds via baggy.”

It’s a record that’s destined to set out the band’s stall as Britain’s premier retro-futurists, with influences ranging from ‘60s psychedelia to Motown, glam, Krautrock and baggy, all viewed through a very modern kaleidoscope – and always keeping the song at the heart of it all. “We still want songs to be songs.” The key, says James, is innovation. “We never want to re-do the same thing, use the same formula as a previous song. We’re always looking hard to better ourselves.”

This album contains no booklet.