Engineers: New Horizons

London-based Mancunians, Engineers, released their eponymous debut in 2005, and its dreamy mix of psychedelia, krautrock and shoegaze was well received by connoisseurs of unworldly soundscapes.

Then, everything fell silent.

Four years on, Engineers are back, releasing Three Fact Fader in a musical climate that has radically changed since the band’s early days. But what’s taken them so long? Bassist Mark Peters explains: “During the making of the album, the label which we were on stopped being a label which actually released records. We didn’t really want to wait and be shopped around after we’d made an album…so we decided just to have a rest. I went on to do some session playing, and a couple of the other guys went into tour management.”

However, it wasn’t long until public demand and record label interest drew their attention back towards Engineering. “We had a remix done by [Welsh DJ] Sasha, put a few of those tracks up on MySpace, and it spurred interest from the public. Then we were approached by the new label, Kscope, and they didn’t even know there was another album; they just wanted to see if we were still together. When we told them that there was one, they decided to license it from Echo.”

Despite having secured the backing of Kscope, Peters notes how the musical industry that Engineers returned to was “a totally different place”, and explains how the band have reacted to this. “Whether we actually sell any records now has a big question mark over it, but we definitely know now that we have a set fan base who love the tracks; I mean, there’s been certain times when we’ve been literally inundated with people telling us that they absolutely love it.”

Indeed, although the effect of downloading has forced Engineers, like all bands, to rethink their approach towards distributing music, it’s also allowed them to communicate with their fans on an unprecedented level. “People are wanting to know more details on tracks off the second album that have been on MySpace, and it’s had a bit of a mythical status, which is, for me, wonderful, because we’re losing a lot of that from the industry.”

Anyone who compares Three Fact Fader to Engineers' debut will realise that promotion isn’t the only area that the band have shaken up: their dreamy sound is now bolstered by a groovy, Motorik backbone. Peters argues that the change in sound reflects the band’s new approach to the recording process. “We were really set on doing the first album ourselves, and then, when we were coming to do the second one, we felt like we needed someone with a bit of experience”.

The choice was Ken Thomas, a producer whose eclectic track record allowed Engineers to be willingly pulled in several musical directions. “He was in tune with a lot of the German stuff we were into, and he’s worked on a lot of really diverse, alternative acts – the Cocteau Twins, PiL, stuff like that – and we just wanted to come at it from a different angle.”

‘A different angle’ is certainly right; Clean Coloured Wire is a Harmonia sampling gem, whilst Crawl From The Wreckage and Song For Andy are downright funky. Why so groovy all of a sudden? “One of the things on the first album that we felt we’d concentrated quite a lot on was atmosphere, so we wanted to have a lot more stronger, definite rhythms on this. Not necessarily to have a dance album, but to have audible bass grooves; something that we could have a lot more fun with live.”

Of course, Peters and the band are well aware that “because people can just get the album for nothing, it means that the live thing has to be a real experience.” With that in mind, are Engineers now a touring live spectacle that’s here to stay? Peters lays down the law: “We’re not signed, we’re not contracted to anything we don’t wanna do, so it’s up to us, really”.

It’s a pretty adamant statement of intent, and there’s no doubt that Engineers are a refreshingly strong-willed band. If only for the benefit of our ears, however, let’s hope they’ll bend to inevitable public adoration of Three Fact Fader just a little bit more; in an age when shoegaze is no longer an insult Engineers could have the pop world in the palm of their hand.