Khaki Fever – Quarter After Midnight | Sparkling Sunlight

‘Quarter After Midnight,’ Khaki Fever’s latest release, is funky and upbeat. The composition is bright and fun. The lush synthesiser heavy tone of Khaki Fever is attractive, and their ability to combine numerous genres flawlessly is extremely strongly experienced throughout the track. Though the piece may draw comparisons to Electronic music, I believed their sound had much more depth because of the dynamics they offer to the arrangements.

Khaki Fever (pronounced Kar-Kee-Fee-Ver) is a London-based feel-good, whimsical two-piece band-pop duo. While Khaki Fever’s sound is predominantly synthesised, they keep a live feel and atmosphere by incorporating influences from many genres such as indie, rock, funk, and pop. Khaki Fever provides something for everyone with such a broad and varied sound!

The voice production is excellent, and it perfectly complements the rhythmic components. As previously stated, it reminds me of the shimmering, glistening waves of an infinite ocean. The intensity is continuous as the track goes; it does, as intended, settle you down in the middle and again urges you tap along. The unique sonic design is highly appealing to listeners, which may be a key factor in setting them apart, and it is strongly supported by good literary abilities. The music certainly sounds good, and their ability to provide us with an enjoyable listening experience is tremendous.

Here is an interview we conducted with Khaki Fever in which they reveal their songwriting and production process, their origins, their music preferences, and some hints about their upcoming projects.

The framework is intriguing. Could you explain us how you went about writing the song? What are the major elements of the music that you experimented with?

We had written the foundations of the song before we officially started the band. The Khaki Fever live band members had a massive input on this song, especially our beautiful keyboard player Joe Moore. When we started arranging the song, the dynamics, lyrics and energy were all already there. We then rearranged it slightly to turn it more from a band jam to a track. One of the key aspects of the track is its dynamics so creating vocal performances that compliment these changes in volume and energy while delivering our own character was key. One of the other aspects we experimented with was the horns at the end. We ended up choosing trumpets because they really cut through the mix.

The sound is hybrid, which means you may pick from a wide range of sounds from both universes. How did you come up with the idea to combine this specific percussive instruments and melodic tones? What was the process like?

Well because the foundations of the song were written before Khaki Fever, the challenge was to bring it further into the Khaki Fever world. Our current sound is characterized by a funky groove with digital elements. The bass was rewritten and rerecorded to further bring out that groove that the drums and percussion were already delivering. We wanted the track to lead on nicely from our first single “I Got This Feeling” and to do so we needed similar timbres and textures. So we spent a lot of time adjusting the synths in the choruses to compliment the track but also link back to our first release “I Got This Feeling”. Contingency is important to us with our plan for this EP.

What brought Sam and Gio together? What led to the formation of this two-piece band?

Gio started working at the studio Sam was working at the time. We got on and chatted for a day, then Gio was offered another job somewhere else and Sam didn’t see him again for six months. Out of the blue Sam got a call from Gio asking if he wanted to go for a drink. We went out and had a great night and didn’t see each other again for another six months. Then half way through the lockdown Gio called Sam asking if he wanted to jam together. We were both going insane from the lockdown and hadn’t been able to perform at all. So Gio came to the studio and we showed each other some songs we had written and both really vibed off each other’s music (which is, from our experience, quite rare to have two people with very similar artistic ideas and direction). When we got lunch that day Gio mentioned that he wasn’t enjoying where he was living so I invited him to live with me in a shared flat. That’s how the Fever Family started.

What are your hopes or expectations for this song? Is there a special message you’d like to get through with this song?

We would love… we’ve had fans tell us it sounds like a FIFA track, it would be great to get one of our songs on a big game like that! The first three singles will form our first EP and we really just want to introduce people to Khaki Fever and let them know we’re up for a good time. The lyrics of all three singles are uplifting, feel good. We have a lot of other songs with more meaning behind them, but for now we just want people to have some Fever fun!

What are some of your musical influences? Do you have any artists in mind with whom you’d want to collaborate?

Our biggest musical influence is probably Jungle. Particularly this first EP, we draw a lot from their grooves and arrangements. We’ve been a big fan of their music for a long time and saw them play recently at O2 Brixton, to support them would be amazing, for us that would be mission complete. The large orchestral sounds, particularly for our debut single, and influenced by Florence and the Machine. The way she fuses orchestral instrumentation with pop to create this wall of sound is magnificent and something we also really wanted to achieve. Quarter After Midnight is reminiscent of 70s funk also – the bassline and guitars in particular. For this KC and the Sunshine Band were one of the key influences.

What comes next? Tell us a little more about your future projects and what we may expect to hear in those records?

We have a lot of plans for the future! Our third release which will be the last track of our debut EP we have planned to release before Christmas. We’ve already recorded or part recorded about five more songs and we’re looking forward to releasing them! Stylistically, we’ll be exploring other genres and styles. Our future releases will range from dance music to more melancholy soft rock. On the gig front, we’ll be playing at Night and Day in Manchester on December 14 th . The band we have playing for us are amazing, a great bunch of guys and girls. We’ll be looking for bigger bands to support in the new year also! It really is an exciting time for Khaki Fever.

Listen to Khaki Fever’s new song ‘Quarter After Midnight’ on Spotify!