LITTLE Dragon’s fourth album Nabuma Rubberband has found the four Swedes a wider audience.

But it’s hard to imagine the quartet losing a sense of who they are.

Erik, Fredrik, Håkan and Yukimi have been friends since school and they’ve been making music together for almost 20 years.

Drummer Erik Bodin says the secret to the longevity is to take a collective approach.

“Somewhere along the road we decided we should all be equally present, so we spilt everything equally - not just the money side of things but also the creative side and what comes out. We try to make it feel like everybody is there in the music and that makes us equally proud of it. That has kept us together.”

One trick to keep the creative tap flowing is to try to break personal boundaries. Other important factors which helped Nabuma Rubberband become the band’s most creative adventure to date are a series of collaborations and a new studio.

The band moved their gear up a floor in the Gothenburg building they’ve used as base for years and built a new recording space. “We don’t see the clock ticking anymore,” says Bodin. “It made us relax enough to open up and also made us want to try things we haven’t tried before - getting strings on it, sending it over to other people to mix and having different arrangements and edits.”

String players from the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra feature on title track Nabuma Rubberband and the Danish producer Robin Hannibal, behind a sample US rapper Kendrick Lamar lifted for B****, Don’t Kill My Vibe, edited the music.

“He listened to the music in another way, without sentimentality, and moved things round, so that was a good move.”

In another first, the band handed over the mixing to an outsider - Jaycen Joshua, another LA resident who has worked on stellar R&B pop from Beyonce to Mary J Blige.

“Before, we mixed it ourselves and that is one of the most pressured things to do if you have been working on the music – it’s so hard to say it is finished.”

Rap hippie Dave Jude Jolicoeur from De La Soul worked with Yukimi Nagano on her lyrics. The two had met when Damon Albarn invited Little Dragon to contribute to Gorillaz Plastic Beach album and tour.

After bouncing ideas off Dave, Yukimi worked differently, reveals Bodin. “She was getting concepts and working on stories. She had a lot of time really sitting writing lyrics on and off and coming back to words later. I think it was a struggle; maybe it was a struggle she was up for.”

Rather than writing an off-hand lyric without even thinking, “she wanted to break her own boundaries.”

You can hear the collaborators’ effect on Nabuma Rubberband. It is moodier and mellower than 2011’s Ritual Union. Its layers are spread thicker.

Early in the press campaign for the album Nagano revealed Janet Jackson was a big influence. A few 1980s slow-jams certainly owe something to the American singer. But the pioneering production team behind her sound, Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam, the men who led 1980s R&B and made the Roland 808 an essential tool for the sound, are Nabuma Rubberband’s real inspiration.

“They are not the hippest nowadays but I really enjoy their production and beat and music. We love synth music and that is basically what it is. It is not Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode, but we really enjoy those cold but very personal machine-like sounds. They are so weird and unnatural.”

 

Little Dragon play Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, Church Street, Brighton, on Monday, November 17. Doors 7pm, £21. Call 01273 709709.