Atmosphere: Feeling Minnesota

“I’m really bad with words,” rasps a modest Shaun “Slug” Daley. He’s telling big porkies; as one half of Atmosphere, Daley – alongside producer Anthony “Ant” Davis – has turned out six albums, twelve EPs and a handful of mix tapes in a little over a decade. In between, they’ve somehow found time to play thousands of shows and cameo on releases by such esteemed peers as EL-P and MF Doom. There's little doubt that this is one of the hardest working outfits in hip-hop today.

“Is it ok if I say a word like eurotrash to you?” he asks. 'Sure,' I tell him. 'But we Scots often consider ourselves to be detached from Europe anyway.' The forthright emcee isn’t for a minute suggesting that The Skinny is all about painting naked Germans under the supervision of Jean-Paul Gaultier, you understand, just looking for a sensible way to describe his socio-politically charged new LP, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold.

“When I hear this album, I hear cold. I hear brittle; I can see the Kraftwerk in there,” Slug reasons. “I always listen to a lot of Prince, but [when I was recording this album] I was really heavily sinking myself into Minneapolis music on purpose, and if you look at a lot of the Jimmy Jam stuff from the 80s, I think a lot of the funk was being influenced by some of that eurotrash stuff.”

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Indeed, seeing Atmosphere in the context of this particular school of funk goes some way to sacking the stigma of the ‘emo-rap’ albatross that the duo have had draped around their neck for the last few years. Slug's icy delivery paired with Ant’s funked up synthesis is a potent combination, and the act specialise in psychologically challenging tracks. They burrow into the psyche of a range of characters - from the pimp to the waitress - and explore the dysfunctional relationship between a skint single parent and their only child. All this might be indicative of some post-modern blue collar tragedy, but it’s one that Slug hastens to add has an “optimistic” ending.

This isn’t the first time that Atmosphere have embraced the most typically maligned of latter day musical endeavours - cheers Green Day - the concept record. “I’ve been doing that ever since [2002’s] God Loves Ugly,” says Slug. “[1997’s debut] Overcast! was supposed to be like that but it was pretty convoluted, and then [2001's] Lucy Ford was just a collection of shit,” he spits, as though he’s struggling to scrape it off the sole of his shoe. “That was more about me trying to take a look at why the people in my city can’t figure out how to get along with each other and have healthy sex.”

Though Slug sticks to the fairly non-committal story that “the people and the situations that I’m surrounded by are where I usually steal most of my ideas from” as the forces that pushed his pen to paper on this album, as a group that has played in excess of 2,000 gigs, sometimes all Atmosphere have to do is open their eyes while they’re on stage to see the drama unfold. “I’ve seen really bad fights,” he recalls. “There was a situation at one show where a young girl was killed by a janitor that worked at the venue. Every year, we see a lot of crazy stuff.”

With such a powerful well of tales to draw from, Slug took it to the next logical step and produced a children’s story to accompany a limited run of the new album. “It’s the same concept and the same idea as the album – done in a very simplified manner,” he explains. “I always wanted to try writing a children’s book. I wrote the words and a friend of mine named Marshall from a group called Doomtree drew the illustrations. They’re great. In fact, his illustrations are better than my album.”

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Other contributions on the album itself come from the lungs of TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe on the chilling, fear-inducing electro of Your Glass House and the beatboxing of none other than Tom Waits on the funky, flute-led The Waitress. But it’s his creative partnership with Ant that Slug seems most reluctant to expand on. “It’s very collaborative,” he finally commits, “but we don’t like to admit to people how collaborative it is. He helps with the words and I help with the music, but I don’t want people to start asking me technical production questions, and I’ll be damned if he’s going to be able to answer any questions about rap!”

With technical production questions out of bounds, the only pressing matter is to ask Slug for a recipe to add to The Skinny cook book. “Macaroni and cheese,” he offers. Home made? “No, right out of the box. I’m American trash.”