Burn The Negative’s second album, How To Weigh The Human Soul isn’t your average slice of indie electro. Based on the concept that the human body loses 21 grams upon death (raising the question: is this due to the departure of the soul?), it’s a cerebral, multi-layered offering that explores a variety of issues surrounding life, death, relationships and the human mind and soul. Ooh… how existential.

A more cinematic, epic sound compared to the celebrated first record, In The Atmosphere, the Carlisle four-piece have certainly stepped things up a gear with their sophomore offering. tourtimes got the lowdown from frontman, Mark Baker…

Hi. Where are you now? What can you see?
I’m sat in a new apartment in Carlisle. I’m able to see the old remainders of the Church that this place was built around. I’m kind of wondering who put a visible stained glass window into some gorgeous shaped sandstone, and how long ago. I’m imagining it was a small, old man bestowed with his passed down family born craft. But it was probably some bloke called Terry from Safestyle UK, “I said buy one get one free!”

Been busy?
I’ve been getting on with working hard on the new album, writing and recording it. There was a real need to carry on the writing process from album one; I think it was a natural flow. I never felt any of the second album syndrome stuff you hear about, but that’s probably only when you sell 100,000 albums on the debut! There’s no point in suffering the second album syndrome though really is there? Really, the only people you should want to impress are yourselves. That’s probably why most second albums are fucking crap. Everyone’s so busy trying to please the label, the PR company and the bloke at the front at the gig who “loved your first album”. Once you start putting faces to the writing process, you might as well call it a day. The first album was born out of passion, hunger and ambition. The second should be as well.

It’s just about to come out… How does it sound?
It’s massive, epic even. But then again, we’d say that really. It’s not going to be easy to compare this album with anything else, especially if you’re trying to place it with current electro bands. There’s no cheese, it’s hard hitting in areas, cheeky, melodic, emotional and punchy. It’s simple, yet complex; we had to step it up from the first album and I could see the clear path, which was to enhance the choruses and musical aspects of the writing.

Tell us about the recording…
It was recorded from late 2009, just after the completion of In the Atmosphere, until winter 2010. It was done between my home set up and Gary’s (ex band member, Gary Little) home studio in Carlisle. [It took[ around 14-to-15 months in total, which was the same as the debut album, funnily enough. Another reason other bands fall flat on their arses, I think, is the debut album laziness: three years on a debut, then one year for a follow up… it’s a bad idea.

The record’s based on the concept of weighing the human soul. How d’you come up with the idea?
The idea was brought out by scientific experiments I’d read about regarding the weighing of the dying human body, as it becomes inexplicably lighter on death. Is it the weight of the human soul? If it is, it opens many cans of worms.

In what ways is the concept manifested in the sound / lyrics of the record?
The music is all about people. As I worked through the album, lyrically speaking, I realized I was gathering a huge chip on my shoulder. I had a real anger at certain people and how their own attitude or apathy affected me. It made me angry at myself. That said, I did realise how much people made me smile and how they affected my mood, positively. Lyrically, some tracks are really fucking cheeky, very derogatory to certain people, people who I won’t mention, as there’s no point. I think the people who do hear it will know that I’m kicking them down because they know I’m fucking right.

Could you tell us about the new single, ‘Smash & Grab’? What’s it about?
It’s lyrically negative, but with a very positive statement. The lyrics are driven towards one particular person. It’s about the loss or lack of taking opportunities, knocking back things other people would give their right arm for. The lyric then hits back positively with, “break the glass, don’t look back, face the fact and attack”. In other words, go and do it, take the chance, at any cost.

How would you say this record has moved on from the first album?
It’s just much more musical. In The Atmosphere was a collection of grooves and songs; moody in parts but with a level of writing that was purposefully meant to be structured to work in a heavier club vibe. ...The Human Soul is much bigger in production; it’s got huge choruses without being offensive to the style of writing. In other words, it doesn’t sell out to the melody or pop formula. The story is there, the substance is there, yet we’ve built gigantic music around them.

You produced Calvin Harris’ first single… How did that come about?
Gary, who recently left the band, and I were producing house music under the name Lil’ Devious, and some material was given to us for potential release on our then record label, Natural Selection Recordings. We found out that this kid was from Dumfries, which is just up the road. (His music) was really mature considering that at the time we were made aware he was only around 15 years old. It showed massive potential. We contacted him and got together over a number of weeks. He came out to a studio I had at the time out at Warwick Bridge, on the outskirts of Carlisle. We mixed three tracks down for him and decided to release the material. However, as per usual, the labels at the time were struggling with the increasing costs of vinyl and felt we couldn’t commit financially to the deal we had with him, so I began hunting him a new label and managed to source a label called Prime, which was part of a large distribution company in London. So yeah, I got him his first deal, which was eventually released as a Stouffer record. I still have lots of his cassette demos and I always hoped his house music side would come out after his debut album and it did. I’m really proud of him and I’m loving watching him smash it. He deserves it all. He’s very talented and doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is a very endearing quality to have when you’re as successful as he is. I still speak to him every now and then, which is cool.


Upcoming Burn The Negative live dates:

14 August @ Club Concrete, Carlisle
20 August @ Windmill, London
27 August @ Rainbow, Birmingham
29 August @ Solfest, Siloth
14 October @ Hoxton Pony, London