CULTURE INTERVIEW
Faithless will be performing at Newmarket Nights on Friday 8 August. Find out more at thejockeyclub.co.uk/newmarket Maxi could see how happy people are in the crowds, and how much they still love him and the songs. They’ve lived in people’s lives – what a thing.” with someone on the dance floor and giving them your phone number… or did you actually give it to them?” Tracks from this album will be among those in the setlist for August’s headline live performance at Newmarket Racecourse – alongside old favourites and music that has been of huge influence to the band. “It’s been great performing the new music live and weaving it in with classic Faithless songs – there’s an art form in that to me,” says Bliss. “The present and the past can coexist in a beautiful way.” Above all though, she adds, the show is really a love letter to Maxi and to electronic dance music. “I keep saying it, but I wish worked on what we were feeling, and I think – for better or worse – that’s how we’ve always operated.” Always – and forever. Because the band’s brand-new release, Champion Sound , is not only an album but a double album, with four distinct sides – each one representing a different mood. “People say, ‘oh, no one listens to albums any more’, but I hope this record, in its broken-down four-side format, will ease people back into the joy of letting music unfold rather than being condensed into edits that can be as short as two minutes now. How can you express yourself in two minutes?” Bliss questions. “For me, it’s all about slowing everything down so we can be expansive musically.” Drip feeding the musical delights, the band is releasing one side per month, with two sides available so far (at time of writing), and a full release planned for September. “The first side is Forever Free , which starts with the only posthumously released Maxi vocal, and that’s a really beautiful, trippy, dancy side of the album,” says Bliss. “Then the second side, Phone Number , is this bleary, post-rave love story, when you’re remembering locking eyes We just worked on what we were feeling , and I think – for better or worse – that’s how we’ve always operated
find out what Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald was. Isn’t that mad? But it really was that analogue back then!” Death and rebirth Asked what she misses most, Bliss doesn’t skip a beat: Maxi Jazz, founding member of Faithless (alongside Bliss and Rollo), who passed away in 2022 – and whom she still dreams about. Having reformed the band just last year, playing live shows that ‘tell that story of who we are, what we were and pay homage to Maxi and all his brilliance’, I wondered if returning to the stage had brought any unexpected emotions for Bliss. “Every time I hear Maxi’s voice in our key songs like Insomnia and God Is a DJ , I just feel this welling up. His voice is in my ears and my head, reverberating in my body, and it never fails to bring that big yearning, sad feeling of missing him. That’s what grief is; it changes, but it’s constant. I
just wish he was bounding around on the stage in front of me – I look out, almost willing him to ‘become’ again. “But I’ve been surprised by how fun it’s been, too,” she adds. “There are four core band members who were on our last tour – people who know the music inside out – but also three new members: Nathan Ball and Amelia Fox, who are fantastic singers, plus new guitarist Max Rad, who’s also a producer. It’s breathed new life into it, and they’ve just been an absolute joy to tour with because they’re not jaded old f*ckers like we are, quite frankly!” Pushing forward Faithless has always been a big champion of the album format – playing with its potential to reflect, in Bliss’s words, a ‘Venn diagram’ of each band member’s musical tastes and ideas. “There was no one telling us, ‘oh, you can’t have a folk song next to a banging main-floor anthem’, so we just
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