Crystal Fighters: “The record was derived from altered states of consciousness and transcendent states of mind.”

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“And it ain’t me, it ain’t you, it’s only us, it’s us right now.” It’s a subtly poignant mantra from Spanish/English dance-folk outfit Crystal Fighters, in their recent summer charmer ‘You & I’.

“It’s a stream of consciousness style song about being away from home and travelling,” says lead singer Sebastian Pringle before the band’s gig at London’s KOKO. “It’s about being in a hectic situation and then suddenly finding yourself overwhelmed with love and just wanting to exist with someone else. It’s got a joyful feeling. It’s about many aspects of young relationships.” He’s in an oddly calm frame of mind, speaking methodically in the hours before their sold-out performance in support of new record, Cave Rave.

The album is a monumental array of sun-soaked ukulele riffs, hippie-love lyrics and dusty neon rhythms. Every track a surefire festival hit, with massive sing-along choruses and the kind of earworm hooks you need invasive surgery to remove. Although they’ve distanced themselves from the club dance belters of before in favour of a more organic sound, there’s still a definite fist-pumping atmosphere. There’s a stringent theme of the power of love and the pleasures of simply living – even the more melancholy moments are laced with promise and hope. Pringle explains the force behind the album.

“We felt like we could be anywhere in the world at any time; it was so isolated. We imagined what the ancient cave people who had no received culture were like. The record was derived from altered states of consciousness and transcendent states of mind.”

“We went to the Basque country to write most of it. We were there for two months,” Pringle says of the recording process. “We wrote on guitars and focused on melodies and making songs as good as possible… we were just playing them together. It was finished off in London, and then we recorded for three months with Justin M83/Beck] in LA.”

He continues, getting more excited, stating a continuation of Crystal Fighters’ themes from their first LP. “It sums up in a lighthearted way the ideas we were thinking about. We were in the Basque country, where Laure’s grandfather came from – we used his memoirs for the first record – and we’d gone out to see if we still had the passion for the place, which we absolutely did.

“We started looking deeper, looking at what Laure’s grandfather was talking about, talking about things much deeper than we thought, like ancient spiritual things, the beliefs going on in his work.”

The ritual of sculpting an album is rigorous and cathartic experience. It demands a lot of patience and effort, but is ultimately hugely rewarding. “We definitely learned a lot. We only started writing proper songs towards the end of Star Of Love that were guitar and vocal led, but this time around we tried to do all of it like that, and we learned a lot about how to write songs and put something together that we were proud to play live.

“It’s less obviously electronic dance, more of a ‘songs’ album. There are more ‘hits’. The ideas dig a little deeper, we expand a little more on the themes.” Pringle pauses and then mulls the benefits. “It’s worth putting the effort it. The recording process was hugely helpful and working with someone with the experience Justin had with recording made things sound better than the first album.”

Given their eclectic world-inspired sound, peppered with dance music and indie-pop, you’d think they listened to a wide berth of sounds. If you did assume that, you’d be right. “We love techno, house… something called microhouse… I was listening to South American shaman music, the sort of stuff shamans would play to their disciples during strange trances. We listen to lots of Afrobeat. There’s lots of world influences. We love future-garage and post-dubstep. Pretty much every genre!”

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They were praised for their amalgam of club tunes and Basque folk on Star Of Love. There’s still elements of both of those, but they’ve fused the genres further, and omitted much of the synth mastery of before (though some tracks are very rave-y). “We knew we wanted to record with our touring drummer, he’s amazing. We wanted to have a coherence and use the instruments, once we had those basic backbones, it felt the songs didn’t need too much more and we didn’t want to overload them with electronics.”

Instead, there’s a prevalence of world instruments, like the Bolivian charango: “It was interesting using those instruments. We are keen to always get to the forefront of technology to create a futuristic sound, but this time we were using the primitive instruments like the txalaparta for a raw sound that appeals to a deep sense of nature. It adds a reality and depth we wouldn’t have had with just synth music.”

Listen to an exclusive Kirk Spencer remix of ‘You & I’ above

Cave Rave is a record that’s constructed for live revelry. There are plenty of launch shows and tours over the summer for Crystal Fighters – including an actual rave in a cave. “Ever since we started the band we had been hearing stories about the Basque cave parties, and when we saw the photos we just knew we really wanted to do it… then we found the album title and everything fell together.”

As for the other performances this summer, Pringle stresses their intimacy. “Shows are growing day by day, and we’re adding new songs and making the set flow well. We’re trying to make it tight and interesting. We’re trying to create a kind of peace that brings the band and audience together in a altered state of mind. We want to try and bring that to a festival stage as well, it’s much easier in a smaller environment, but far more difficult when there’s a big space to fill.”

Obviously, the tours are going to elicit downtime in foreign countries. There’s only so much you can do in coaches travelling from nation to nation, so what better way to venture into a country’s culture than to devour all it has to offer. “We like to explore cities and make more music on our time off. We compose stuff and eat good, interesting food. I like searching for the best vegan restaurants. We just love seeing what’s going on at the time.”

And what do Crystal Fighters do as the curtain call draws nearer, to hype themselves? “Before shows, Graham likes to hound us all. There’s some… mild drinking from other members… There’s also lots of internationalisation and meditation.” That explains Pringle’s placid demeanour, then.

As many musicians are eager to do once the Spring has sprung, Crystal Fighters are itching to get up on stage. “We’re excited about playing shows and seeing loads of sunshine (hopefully). It’s important to get that vitamin D and enjoy being alive!” As their set creeps nearer, Pringle shows little sign of agitation or anxiety. He’s collected, simply bathing in contendedness – it’s easy to see where Cave Rave gets its laidback nature. The album is a collection of cuts that incite a fuzziness in your belly and a warm, slow-burning smirk; it forces a dull happiness – not an overt joy full of hysterical laughter, but the kind of feeling where you can imagine that everything is right with the world.

Cave Rave is available now through Zirkulo.