Photo courtesy of Space Raft
Milwaukee’s Space Raft always has had an affinity towards pop music.
“We’d always walked the line between psychedelic music and pop music,” says singer/songwriter and guitarist Jordan Davis. “A lot of our songs are longer and heavier, but they've had a pop hook structure to them for the most part.”
It’s unsurprising then that the band went all in on their new album Positively Space Raft. It’s a result born of loftier ambitions as they originally intended to record a double album.
“The original idea for a double album was that the first side of the four sides would be just a pure pop record,” says Davis. “And then the rest would be all over the place. I ended up writing as many pop songs as I could. And then when I emerged I had more than just a side. So, the band decided at that point just to pull the plug on the double album, and then just concentrate on making the pop record.”
He attributes revisiting some of his older unreleased material for pushing him to go in that direction. For example, “Transit Trash,” a song he wrote a dozen years ago about riding the bus in his hometown of Green Bay, helped dictate the approach for the rest of the album.
One similar trait to these new songs is the conciseness in songwriting.
“It’s hard to write in those impulses to make everything a mini opus,” says Davis. “But with pop writing, you just need to get to the chorus. You make sure that you've got something to throw it up in the middle, either instrumental passage or some sort of medley. That kind of editing is hard to practice. It's hard to get that stuff without a lot of trial and error.”
"My songs are my songs, but it doesn't sound like Space Raft until the band gets a hold of them and is able to dictate how long the verses are supposed to be, where the choruses come in, how the instrumental sections feel.”
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To further achieve the full pop experience, the band decided to work with two pop-minded engineers—Midnight Reruns songwriter Graham Hunt and Mystery Room Mastering’s Justin Perkins. Says Davis, “[They helped us] making something that's clear and concise, and about the hooks rather than a lot of layers of feedback stuff.”
Feel Good Record
The album’s title, which references the band’s obsession with Mad Libs, fits the pop theme.
“Whenever an adverb comes up, we all get a little stumped, and we always end up using the same ones over and over,” says Davis. “I went through a bunch of adverbs and none of them really stuck, except for Positively Space Raft. I felt like it fit the theme of the record, which was supposed to be a pop, kind of feel good record. It kind of adhered to the kind of sunshine pop elements that I was calling as influence for this record.”
While live performances are on hold, fans can look forward to physical copies of the album this summer as well as a videogame featuring 8-bit Chiptune versions of the band’s songs.
“If it manages to cheer anybody up at this point in time,” he says, “that's kind of all we can ask for.”
