INTERVIEW JANET HARDING / IMAGES WARREN MILLAR
‘Sympathy for the Future’, the debut album
When good friends of All Music Magazine and cool dance/indie groovsters, Winachi, extended an invitation to meet up at Warrington’s (Cheshire) coolest, vibrant cafe/bar, Dorado Lounge, to chat about their long awaited debut album, ‘Sympathy for the Future’, we were delighted to accept. So Warren Millar, armed with his cameras, and myself headed down to what turned out to be a brilliant afternoon with Liam Croker, Anthony Egerton and Inder Goldfinger.
Janet: All Music
So obviously we’re here to talk about your debut album, ‘Sympathy for the Future’. Firstly tell me about the title track.
Liam: Yeah, well, it’s our debut album; it’s finally finished and out there; it’s been ongoing since 2018/19, the title track was one of those it just had to be… ‘Sympathy for the Future’… it just worked, and yeah it’s out there now!
Inder: It’s been intense at times. We’ve worked hard on so many tracks, rapping, putting stuff down, listening back to it. When it (Sympathy for the Future) came on and it was just a yessss moment, it felt transitional; it was like we’d reached a whole other level.
Liam: Yeah definitely. At that moment we decided there and then, from here on in nothing we make can come below this in standard.
Anthony: It’s a bench mark, and we all had that same moment of realisation with it. It features Rowetta (Satchel) (of Happy Mondays) and it is our standard for tracks now. We self imposed that standard so anything Winachi make now will be that standard, or better.
Inder: We put shit down, some works, some doesn’t, it’s part of the process, but this one it just worked for us and just had to be the one for the title.
Anthony: Basically we make songs, we play them, then perform them; if they’re shit then we just don’t use them, we really wanna stick to that standard.
Janet: All Music
And that definitely shines through. How would each of you describe your sound for people who’ve never experienced Winachi?
Inder: Winachi sound is…international …it’s dance, it’s cool and it’s very refined – no testicle tweaking here!!
Liam: Right, here we go…write this down…”its chicken fried, chicken chasing, nipple cracking, ball thwacking, ostrich racing, mind displacing Winachi!”
Anthony: Dancedelia, psychedelic.
Janet: All Music
I’ve heard it, and now I just wanna go listen to it all over again! Tell me about inspiration, and where does this Winachi sound come from?
Anthony: It’s inspired by house music, all kinds inspires us – a noise, a sound, a genre, a feeling. It’s a real mixture of so much stuff, we play around, if it works we use it on tracks.
Liam: Yeah, we record noises on our phones, just stuff we hear that interests us and think ‘wow that’s cool, maybe we can use that somewhere.’ But themes…well they’re inspired by life, what we’re doing, stuff we’re going through at the time. Each song is like a memory…a diary if you like,…of that time; and some of those times were dark I’m not gonna lie, but some were great, The songs reflect both. Getting this album finished and released, for me it’s been like a huge weight lifted. LA (Los Angeles) had a huge impact on us; we’ve spent a lot of time there and a lot of the material is about or inspired by our time there and the larger than life people we encountered there, .but now this album’s done we can leave that chapter behind and start something new. The energy has changed now and it feels good.
Inder: To me this album…it’s like a book; it’s expressions of time, a vibration, a moment.
Liam: Yes. Like a time capsule, a freeze frame of time, but once it’s out there it’s eternal, it’s no longer just ours, it’s everybody’s.
Anthony: The stuff we’ve experienced in LA has been mad, bonkers, and it’s had an impact on us, massively, so naturally we write about it. But as for constructing a sound or song, we work from a beat or bass line upwards, most songs on the album being from a four to the floor pattern, so dance. We get called funk a lot, which we don’t mind, but really our stuff is more dance than funk.
Janet: All Music
So it’s been a real journey then; obviously it’s been a number of years getting this debut album out there
Inder: Yeah, obviously the pandemic played a big part in that, but the years it’s taken and the journey that’s led us to take is all part of what makes the album. That’s exactly what it is – our journey – not only as a band, but as individuals. I’ve personally wrestled a lot of alligators during this time. It wasn’t easy. but we kept on pushing and we get so many memories of both good and bad times and people when we listen back to these tracks.
Anthony: People have come and gone, the band lineup has changed, we’ve made some great friends and had the craziest of experiences and it’s all there in the music. Some of the themes are dark…we had dark times; some are intense… we had intense times. It’s all part of who we were at that time.
Liam: We’ve been told our album is the most beautifully disturbing collection of songs, and we’ll take that, that’s just what we wanted. So to me we’ve achieved what we set out to do with this debut album. Now that’s done, line drawn under it, it’s on with another new chapter.
Janet:
What’s next then? What can we expect from the next Winachi chapter?
Anthony: Well, we’ve literally got a whole album’s worth of live stuff we’ve done, so that’s gonna be something we‘ll work on.
Liam: Performing, getting out there, delivering these songs, seeing the crowd reaction. Then the next album, which already we’re working on, and more mad experiences, more stuff to inspire us, to drive us on
Inder: Definitely; new things, It’s exciting. We just love making music and we deliver that music, that’s what it’s all about. Bring it on, the next phase, yesss! and we will keep making music and finding new material, influences, sounds, and delivering that crazy, beautiful Winachi thing.
I say this every time, but what I take home from any encounter with Winachi is the massive enthusiasm and commitment they each have for what they do. You get no bullshit, they write it how it is, celebrate what’s good and bad. It’s a truly inspirational work, this debut album, ‘Sympathy for the Future’, Each song conjures up a different vibe, feel, but still manages to work as one glowing and organic masterpiece. It’s dance worthy, but laid back; smooth, slick and cool, with a dark underbelly and an element of danger. LA vibes shine through during some tracks, whilst others are psychedelic, eastern feeling, and lyrics are clever and descriptive, but mean much more now, having this insight into the Winachi journey.
Another wonderful day spent with this vibrant and creative band. Thank you Winachi, for creating and sharing this album. Huge thanks to Jo and the team at Dorado Lounge in Warrington, Cheshire, for the hospitality and for accommodating us.
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Warren is a live music and festival photographer based in Cheshire and covers gigs/festivals mostly in the North West of England. He has been photographing live music for over 10 years and has covered major artists and festivals
