Radio Banana, a band hailing from Stockholm, Sweden, unveils their debut instrumental album, merging lofi beats, funky elements, and playful electronic synthesizers. The outcome is a dynamic and lively introduction that prominently displays their distinct musical style.100% fresh – Savor the groovy goodness!
Tell us a few things about EP Side Snack. What is the main idea behind it?
This group started out almost accidentally with a loose drum machine, bass guitar and synthesizer jam. As we are originally three bedroom producers, the jam moved back and forth between the real world and a shared google drive folder where bits and pieces of grooves started to shape into songs through direct democracy and a very open anything-goes methodology. Enjoying the collective process, we churned out more stuff than we probably would have done separately, and after a couple of months we sat down and tried to sort out what to do with all this. Having too many darlings and no wish to kill them we split our favorites into three potential EP:s, and focused on this one first. Oh, now we’ve drifted from the question! So, when this music started to take shape we had an ongoing conversation about a particular flavor of music we’re all into. Groovy music that is FUN. Not like haha-funny, but that makes you smile, not heart-on-your-sleeve-serious-powerful stuff. Instead of the main dish, the side snack. So there you go. The non-story story about the Side Snack EP if you like.
The EP contains some really flavoursome grooves. Tell us a groove/drop you wish you had composed yourselves.
Arne: The bridge in “Strawberry Letter 23” by Shuggie Otis. That’s the loop I’d bring to a deserted island.
Henrik: Yaz Gazeteci by Selda Bağcan
Fredrik: Poet by Sly & The Family Stone. “My only weapon is my pen”.
Adding to our previous question, artists and people that have influenced you?
A: Me’shell Ndegeocello, Boards of Canada, Arto Lindsay, Milton Nascimento
H: When Madvillain came out it was a revelation to me that so much artistic value, fun and groove could be condensed into such short songs, while still feeling loose and open-ended.
F: All those artists that wanted to be Prince.
F: I didn’t know you liked Arto Lindsay?! I almost made a track together with him.
What do you love/hate about Stockholm?
Stockholm is too much about work. But there are still just enough cool stuff happening and nice people around to make it worthwhile.
Also how do you relate to the music scene of Stockholm?
There are a lot of small waterholes of creativity everywhere, and we’re a part of that.
If the music of Radio Banana was a film, which film would that be?
Professor Balthazar
What is the story behind your name?
It comes from an old swedish newspaper ad from the 30’s or so. The ad claims that the most superior snack for a family about to enjoy radio entertainment is the banana: it is silent – both when preparing and consuming it, and therefore won’t interfere with the radio entertainment. Probably the banana was also a fairly new and exotic fruit at the time in so perhaps this was just the dark work of the banana-lobby.
Thank you!
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