US instrumental trio Animals As Leaders released their third album, The Joy Of Motion, in 2014 and garnered their very first piece in Prog Magazine...
It’s been five years since Washington trio Animals As Leaders stunned the world with their self-titled instrumental debut, heading a new wave of younger, heavier progressive bands alongside fellow scene heroes Periphery and TesseracT. With their third album, The Joy Of Motion, bandleader Tosin Abasi wanted to rediscover the roots of the project and go back to the original sound he heard in his head.
“Animals As Leaders was actually born with Misha Mansoor [who plays guitar in Periphery] collaborating with us, so it felt right to bring him back on board,” says the virtuoso eight-string guitarist. “He co-wrote a lot of the songs with me, about eight of them in the end. And some of the material pre-dates tracks on our first album – Tooth And Claw, for example, I came up with a long time ago.”
As it turns out, Mansoor wasn’t the only member of Periphery to get involved. “So Misha recommended their bass player Nolly [Getgood] to us for producing and mixing, who was perfect for the job. They’re such an amazing band and old friends of ours, so it worked really well.”
While instrumental music is perhaps more widely accepted by fans of the forward-thinking, progressive end of the sonic spectrum, it’s certainly a movement that comes with its own pitfalls and limitations. An awareness of these challenges has helped Tosin and his bandmates refine their approach over the years.
“We wanted to start approaching our music completely differently,” says Tosin. “I probably ended up playing only a quarter of the notes I did on the other albums, which maybe focused more on the technical side of playing. Instrumental albums are often made by musicians for musicians, so we wanted to keep things tuneful and hold the listener’s attention. We’re hoping our new ideas will help more people absorb something from it.”
The result is a perfectly crafted 52 minutes of breathtaking futuristic fusion, with keyboards and electronics gelling over the warmth of subterranean riffs and cool breeze of mesmerising guitar leads. The Joy Of Motion feels much more universally cohesive than anything Animals As Leaders have recorded to date – with a catchiness most unusual for music of its nature – and looks set to spur Tosin’s profile as a guitar hero for the modern age and seal further endorsements as one of the world’s greatest.
“It’s strange, I’ve never thought of myself as one of the best,” he laughs, with sincere charm and genuine modesty. “What is the best and how does one measure that? Is it the person who’s able to write a beautiful song that moves people? Or someone able to retune their instrument to something completely new and invent their own scales? I think Guthrie Govan [The Aristocrats, Steven Wilson] could probably be the closest: his phrasing and skill is just incredible. On YouTube you can see all these amazing young musicians shredding away, so it’s getting pretty hard to tell these days!”
