Track By Track: Rationale on Vessels EP

Alongside touring the UK and Europe with Bastille and preparing for the release of his self-titled debut album, Rationale has been slowly sharing the component pieces of his latest EP Vessels one track at a time. With final track "Tethered" showing a different side to Rationale's artistry, we had the man himself talk us through the influences and stories behind each of the tracks:

Prodigal Son

"Prodigal Son" is probably one of the most satisfying synth parts I've written to date. It's been a real crowd pleaser live and I love its M83 influences. The lyrics almost wrote themselves very quickly. It started off being about someone that I knew, then turned into a bit of an autobiographical song that I and lot of my friends who also grew up in single parent homes relate to.

Vessels

"Vessels" is my first outside collaboration with another producer/writer. I've been an admirer of Bastian Langebæk from a distance for quiet some time, especially after his work on Jack Garratt's "Worry" and Seramic's first EP. We really hit off in the studio and this was the product of a single days work. I love the groove in the bass and guitars I played and the classic soulful lyrics. I think we were both channelling some Marvin Gaye that day!

Reciprocate

I got together with my pal Alex Burnett and Grades, who I've wanted to work with for a long time. We started the session talking about relationships we'd been in where we kept chasing but the other person was only half interested - something everyone can relate to, I'm sure. We wanted to write a song with downbeat lyrics but an upbeat feel, like Michael Jackson & Quincy Jones did throughout their careers. We wrote two songs that day and this was the one that stood out. Dan [Grades] and I had a great time producing this one.

Tethered

This was a real fun song to write and probably one of the earliest ones in the process of making this EP. I was listening to Tame Impala a lot at the time and I wanted to write and produce something seductive with floating synth lines. The subject matter is rather personal so I won't go into that but it's definitely one of the more moody tracks I can remember making.