Declan McKenna Breaks Down New Album What Happened to the Beach? Track by Track: Exclusive

Venus Rittenberg
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The post Declan McKenna Breaks Down New Album What Happened to the Beach? Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.

Track by Track is a recurring feature series in which artists guide readers through every song on their latest release. Today, Declan McKenna takes us through his new record, What Happened to the Beach?.

Declan McKenna has returned with What Happened to the Beach?, the follow-up to 2021’s Zeroes. The album sees McKenna continuing to develop a more relaxed style, allowing for the psychedelic and pop components to shine through even more brilliantly.

What Happened to the Beach? is intentionally a more joyful album than McKenna’s prior efforts. While remaining a powerful songwriter, he’s now more open to a good time or two.

McKenna explains that two main influences for the album were St. Vincent and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The artist says of St. Vincent: “She takes the guitar to a really cool place. Everything can be manipulated.” Meanwhile, he cites UMO’s hypnotic and spacey energies as factors in the style of the album.

Across the album’s 12 tracks, McKenna’s personality shines through, and it’s a sunny one. “It is entirely quite sweet and optimistic and carries the feeling that is at the core of the album: allowing yourself to let go,” he says of the track “Elevator Hum.”

Listen to Declan McKenna’s What Happened to the Beach? below, and read his Track by Track breakdown of the project. Grab tickets to his ongoing tour of the UK/Europe here.

“WOBBLE”:

“Wobble” is a real bittersweet kickstarter to the album. It’s one of the first ideas that felt like it was the start of a new era. I love the guitar part and how it drifts into the strange world of the album. It gave the album its title and paints a picture around a beach that feels maybe kind of grey and miserable, and it becomes something that seems a bit more optimistic, but still manages to feel sad.

“Elevator Hum”:

“Elevator,” at its heart, is a song of togetherness and friendship and it being so early in the album to me is asking you to open up and become one with the experience. It is entirely quite sweet and optimistic and carries the feeling that is at the core of the album: allowing yourself to let go. Musically, it just glides along as I hope this album allows you to.

“I Write the News”:

“I Write the News” is kind of a weird mashup of brash statements. I think it’s kind of poking fun at the state of debate and discourse, where sometimes there isn’t even a debate of opinion based on some core facts, but a bad faith argument based on different things entirely being deemed to be true, without any genuine desire for any productive outcome. “I write the news.” “No, I write the news.”

“Sympathy”:

“Sympathy” is the opposite of “I Write the News,” really. It’s a really idealistic and hopeful call to arms for peace and understanding, lacking the cynicism. Very ’60s, the mellotron horns are kind of stark and modern, but also a throwback to the ’60s, too. I love the repeating line, “You don’t need to be clever,” as I feel it just sums up how I feel sometimes about trying to one-up people and speak with intent on just being right rather than truly listening.

“Mulholland’s Dinner and Wine”:

“Mulholland’s Dinner and Wine” is a made-up convenience store that maybe gets robbed in the song. Kinda based around Mulholland Drive in LA, but also a kind of British off-license. It’s in a made-up world for sure, but makes huge reference to the darker underbelly of LA and the search for the dream lifestyle.

“Breath of Light”:

“Breath of Light” is a song from hell, with the odd chanting, the clanging percussion, and the center of cosmic sin. My friend Jake Passmore and I came up with that initial groove and over time the concept just kind of found itself through a few attempts at turning the strange chants and noises into a song; hell called, it wants its song back.

“Nothing Works”:

Even though it’s one of the more direct and kind of classic-sounding tunes on the album, “Nothing Works” is kind of like a statement piece for the ethos of what the album was about, believing in yourself and your ideas and not compromising through fear of what others want you to be.

“The Phantom Buzz (Kick In)”:

The idea of the phantom buzz being like when you think your phone has buzzed or rung, but no one is there or nothing has actually seemed to have happened and I sometimes think whether the phone companies are just trying to trick us and they just make it buzz so you go on your phone. It was a delirious song from deep in a lockdown, but man what a fucking riff, well done me.

“Honest Test”:

“Honest Test” is a kind of a love song. A lot of the lyrics are somewhat nonsensical, but love doesn’t really have to make sense or be defined. The song came from that main guitar part and the infectious groove that came with it. I could listen for hours and it just has that glide about it, you know?

“Mezzanine”:

Mezzanine meet me in the upper level, in a dream, let’s ascend. This one stemmed from a dance track my friend Will Bishop and I made a while ago. It still has reference to it with the little sweep after the second chorus into that riff, a super EDM move and super groovy song. It’s a soft, dreamy dance song with that weird mellotron horns sound again.

“It’s an Act”:

“It’s an Act” is the saddest song on the album. It feels like a grounding moment, really. It pulls back from the dreamy and abstract ideas and just kind of says something fairly honest.

The bass riff is what started it and it always wanted to get into a kind of spacey jam, but the idea of your personality being hidden behind a mask through fear or anxiety I think speaks to something wider than just literal performance. Sometimes it’s easy to get into the habit of performing for others day to day.

“4 More Years”:

Four more years — there’s just four more years.

Declan McKenna Breaks Down New Album What Happened to the Beach? Track by Track: Exclusive
Venus Rittenberg

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