Hot sauce, broken teeth, slashed sofas and more than a few bus woes. We get the lowdown on the making of the duos second album Ultralife.

By Eugenie Johnson on 12th April 2017

Is it possible to start calling Oh Wonder a phenomenon? After the release of their self-titled titled album, London duo Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West booked just four gigs to promote the album in the hope that theyd be able to get straight back in the studio. Things didnt quite go to plan, in a good way. After selling out all the shows in less than a week, they ended up touring the world, playing 162 sets across 112 cities across the globe. Josephine still needs pinching though. She cant quite get her head around it all: if youd told us when we were 15 that in 2017 wed be releasing a second record, touring the world, doing what were doing, Id have been like yeah, do one!

Yet here they are, on the cusp of releasing their second album, Ultralife. On the surface, its release seems to be a little bit more traditional than their debuts. For that record, they released a song a month for a year before combining them all into a single collection. This time round theyve taken a slightly more regular approach to writing and recording. As such, they even call this second LP their debut album proper because, as Anthony explains, the first album didnt feel like an album, it was a collection of songs wed made over a year. This was conceived as a full album, Josephine adds. For me, this is the first album Ive ever written.

But this is Oh Wonder were talking about here. As Josephine says, theyve never approached anything properly. Weve done everything the wrong way round! I guess we wanted to continue being an improper band! she laughs. So its pretty unsurprising that Ultralife has had quite an interesting conception. During their manic touring period, they managed to take 30 days out and, of course, they rented an Airbnb in New York. Why? Weve always grown up writing music in homes, and its really nice to feel like youre not at work, Anthony explains. We want to be able to hear traffic, we want to be able to hear people, we want to be able to take a walk and take in some atmosphere to bounce off.

They certainly got that with the second-floor Brooklyn apartment. It was noisy, with people often shouting outside, and a bagel shop residing next door. The flat itself had a leaky shower, and the landlord wasnt too happy about the state that the pair left his place in. The guy tried to get us to buy him a new sofa at the end of it. He was like, you ripped my sofa! And we said we definitely havent mate, Josephine recalls. Oh Wonder wrecking shit up? Surely not. Turns out it was all a bit of a misunderstanding. We sat on the sofa, we wrote some songs, we watched a bit of The Office and thats literally all we did! He thought wed been slashing up his furniture!

If we can help people through their day, thats our job done.

Anthony West

Despite having to cope with some ripped furniture, they managed to get about half of the album written, and after managing to finish off the rest of the record they started recording Ultralife the day after their tour in December 2016 finished. Renting a (very) small studio in the capital filled with their own weird instruments theyd picked up on their travels, the pair were all set to go. But they didnt realise that as well as having to cope with being near Gatwick, theyd have to battle pretty much an entire fleet of London buses too. Literally any time of the day, theres a bus every minute, Josephine says. Its kind of hard to fight Transport For London though, so in the end they just kept the sounds of the buses as part of the record. Theres buses all the way through the album, Josephine insists. You probably cant hear them but theyre there!

You dont get too much more real than the distinctive hum of a buss engine lingering somewhere in the background. It isnt just in the atmosphere where Ultralife more organic though. The duo have been determined to move away from MIDI samples and laptops and into live instrumentation, embracing the feel theyve generated at their countless gigs. The live show really taught us that you get a lot of energy when you put people behind it, Anthony explains. Lots of people comment that the live show is intense; theres people singing, dancing, jumping around, whereas on the record a lot of people say were very chilled, late-night listening, relaxing music, Josephine adds. We wanted to make a record that met in the middle. As a result, she says the new album has just got so much more energy.

That new sense of vitality teems out of the albums first single, also its title track. While it still keeps the sense of languid warmth that ran through their debut album, everything seems brighter and bolder, the chorus being the biggest theyve produced so far. Because of its subject matter about striving to live the best life possible, Josephine says that although they werent quite sure how itd sound at first, it was always going to be a really big, festival summer anthem.

Then she reveals the twist in the tale: none of the other songs on the record sound like Ultralife! Instead, theyve decided to push the boundaries far beyond what theyve done in the past, as Anthony says: the sound and the textures, we wanted to make sure they were all different. With the first record, because of the way it was written and recorded, they all kind of sounded quite similar. So as well as some typically warming piano-centred tunes, theyve also been inspired by French disco, and rock.

Weve done everything the wrong way round!

Josephine Vander Gucht

Their latest track Lifetimes is a hip-hop flavoured number, inspired by seeing Drake live. It even has Anthony doing a spot of rapping or, as he puts it, doing a pathetic white-boy rap. Hes being very harsh on himself. Its also a track centred on climate change, and the pair think they invented a new word in the process of writing it: climaphobe. Is it a word? Anthony asks. Josephine is straight on to Google. Apparently climacophobia is the fear of climbing, but theres no such thing as a climaphobe. Yet.

While Lifetimes expands their usual narrative focus and the English language with it - Anthony explains that we never write to a brief, we just write from experience. Josephine gets really enthused talking about the curious incidents that led to writing one of the biggest, most bombastic songs on the album, High On Humans. Making her way back from Heathrow one day, she realised two girls in front of her were talking avidly about food (as you do). When it came round to the topic of hot sauce, Josephine couldnt help but get involved. I just butted in and was like, I love sriracha! We just chatted about hot sauce for 20 minutes, and I dont even know their names! she laughs. I was so hype after talking to these strangers, its not something you normally do in London. Youre supposed to ignore everyone and look really grumpy.

The unusual encounters that night didnt end there. Getting the tube, she met a drunk man covered in blood having knocked his teeth out. Ouch. Josephine experienced a similar crisis with her own teeth after taking a nasty trip a couple of years ago, so was eager to give advice. I ran up to him and said I cant help but notice that youve lost your front teeth, you must have knocked them out! She made it clear that she wasnt being funny, and just wanted to help. After that, the whole train carriage erupted into conversation, each passenger relating their own funny tales of accidental injury. Walking home, Josephine immediately started making voice memos. I got back and called Anthony and was like Anthony, Ive got a song! Its called High On Humans! And he was just like, youre a weirdo. Charming! Undeterred by his reaction, the next day Josephine sat Anthony down in the studio and was determined to write a song about her experiences. A melody was conceived, High On Humans was born.

Not all of the album is as euphoric or celebratory, though. Instead, the pair have found themselves pondering more about the real nature of human connection, our sometimes shallow take on relationships in the modern age and our tendency towards self-doubt in their songs. People will sit on their own on a Friday night with Netflix or whatever and then think to themselves, why dont I have any friends? Why am I alone? I know I do, you just need people, Josephine muses. Conversely, you get periods where youre so liberated and happy within yourself that you want freedom, independence and want to be alone for a bit.

Despite living an extremely fruitful life on the surface, that internal conflict hasnt escaped Josephine and Anthony. Its a weird cyclical thing that youre constantly questioning yourself and doubting yourself, and I think that touring exacerbated that because youre miles away from everyone you love for extended periods of time and you miss them and you want people, she says. As such, theres a loose narrative arc to the new record that encompasses these two extremes. Opener Solo kicks things off at a house party that you cant wait to get away from, while closer Waste states that its a waste to be so alone.

Rather than being contradictory though, its simply a comment on the strange way the human mind works, hopefully giving some comfort to fans that theyre not alone in harbouring these seemingly inconsistent emotions. For me its a reassurance to listeners that youre not bizarre, or weird, or unusual for constantly doubting yourself, or constantly craving people or independence, Josephine says. Whatever friendship, independence and freedom means to you, you should celebrate that and not fear, not worry.

Ultralife is therefore set to be a record not just about Oh Wonder living their best possible life, but about the highs and lows of the human experience, exposing common yet under-discussed issues that we all share. If we can help people through their day, Anthony says, thats our job done.

Ultralife is out on 16th June via Island Records.

Photos:Mike Lee Thomas

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