After the rain …
Overcoming personal battles and onstage trauma, the Invisible return stronger with an emotionally charged second album
Bursting onto the music scene with a Mercury-nominated debut album in 2009, London trio the Invisible – fronted by the mercurial talent of lead singer and guitarist Dave Okumu – won over critics and fans alike with their expansive, intelligent sound. Cue career progression and smooth progress to the indie hall of fame, you’d think. Yet the tragic loss of Okumu’s mother during the production of the follow-up, Rispah, meant that nothing would ever be the same again.
Beginning life in 2006 as a solo endeavour for Okumu, the Invisible’s evolution into a three-piece alongside Tom Herbert and Leo Taylor – was natural following the success of the debut album. “We had a much clearer sense of who we were as a band,” he says. “Approaching the second album, it had far more of a joint sense of ownership.” Taking the debut’s critical acclaim in their stride was a necessary step, too. “It’s really wonderful when someone acknowledges the significance of your work but it’s not the reason you do it – you do it because you need to,” says Okumu. “If you make something you believe in, the chances are there are some people out there that will feel the same way. That’s a hugely ambitious thing in itself.”
Recording the follow-up was almost complete but with just the mixing and production to go, Okumu’s mother died, putting the album – and the band’s existence – into limbo. “When my mother passed away it was like a bolt of lighting through the middle of everything,” he says. “The main priority was trying to begin to come to terms with something that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to come to terms with and I wasn’t sure about how I felt about the music and what I’d be capable of doing.”
Yet after attending the funeral in Kenya and speaking to band members about what to do next, Okumu decided to continue working on the album. “I felt such a profound trust with the others that I told them I’d see how I feel when I got back,” he says. “In my absence they made some really significant decisions in terms of the tone of the record. It was incredible to find I was still connected to that process and it made sense to what I needed to express in terms of starting to learn about grief.”
And Okumu’s catharsis plays an inevitably central role on the album. Later described by the front man as a “love letter to grief”, it’s an opened-veined paean to the strongest of bonds. “Every component of the album feels incredibly truthful and I gain a real sense of satisfaction as we’ve managed to express some really powerful things,” he says. “I had this really powerful benchmark, which was the memory and legacy of my mum and that if I couldn’t sing the words to her then there was something wrong with what we were making and something didn’t ring true. It created a real clarity to the process and it felt good enough to name the record after my mum.”
A piece at the centre of the record, “What Happened” included the recordings of the music from my mother’s wake and as Okumu says: “The fact that they’re stitched in our record is something that means a great deal to me.”
Once satisfied with the resonance of Rispah, the band were starting to accustom themselves to the new material on stage when another potentially life-changing moment took place at a live show in Lagos, Nigeria. While swapping instruments on stage, Okumu was severely electrocuted, the shock resulting in two broken legs, which he sees as a blessing: “For a second I didn’t think I was going to make it – having my legs broken was a minor inconvenience compared to what might have been,” he says. “The recuperation is a day-by-day process but we’ll be empowered by what we’ve managed to transcend.”
The Invisible’s cause is helped by being at the centre of an incredibly talented musical community based in and around south London but stretching far beyond the capital. “I feel a connection to a lot of artists and we’ve grown up with an environment of sharing work and supporting each other,” says Okumu, whose outfit are heavily involved with a host of successful artists, ranging from Hot Chip to Polar Bear and exciting newcomer Jessie Ware, whose record Okumu produced. “It’s something we continue to do even as we carve out our own niche as a band.”
And given just how poignant that niche is, we wish Dave and the band the speediest of recoveries and returns to where they belong … on stage.
by Ben Olsen
Rispah is out now.
Listen to Protection, here
Beginning life in 2006 as a solo endeavour for Okumu, the Invisible’s evolution into a three-piece alongside Tom Herbert and Leo Taylor – was natural following the success of the debut album. “We had a much clearer sense of who we were as a band,” he says. “Approaching the second album, it had far more of a joint sense of ownership.” Taking the debut’s critical acclaim in their stride was a necessary step, too. “It’s really wonderful when someone acknowledges the significance of your work but it’s not the reason you do it – you do it because you need to,” says Okumu. “If you make something you believe in, the chances are there are some people out there that will feel the same way. That’s a hugely ambitious thing in itself.”
Recording the follow-up was almost complete but with just the mixing and production to go, Okumu’s mother died, putting the album – and the band’s existence – into limbo. “When my mother passed away it was like a bolt of lighting through the middle of everything,” he says. “The main priority was trying to begin to come to terms with something that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to come to terms with and I wasn’t sure about how I felt about the music and what I’d be capable of doing.”
Yet after attending the funeral in Kenya and speaking to band members about what to do next, Okumu decided to continue working on the album. “I felt such a profound trust with the others that I told them I’d see how I feel when I got back,” he says. “In my absence they made some really significant decisions in terms of the tone of the record. It was incredible to find I was still connected to that process and it made sense to what I needed to express in terms of starting to learn about grief.”
And Okumu’s catharsis plays an inevitably central role on the album. Later described by the front man as a “love letter to grief”, it’s an opened-veined paean to the strongest of bonds. “Every component of the album feels incredibly truthful and I gain a real sense of satisfaction as we’ve managed to express some really powerful things,” he says. “I had this really powerful benchmark, which was the memory and legacy of my mum and that if I couldn’t sing the words to her then there was something wrong with what we were making and something didn’t ring true. It created a real clarity to the process and it felt good enough to name the record after my mum.”
A piece at the centre of the record, “What Happened” included the recordings of the music from my mother’s wake and as Okumu says: “The fact that they’re stitched in our record is something that means a great deal to me.”
Once satisfied with the resonance of Rispah, the band were starting to accustom themselves to the new material on stage when another potentially life-changing moment took place at a live show in Lagos, Nigeria. While swapping instruments on stage, Okumu was severely electrocuted, the shock resulting in two broken legs, which he sees as a blessing: “For a second I didn’t think I was going to make it – having my legs broken was a minor inconvenience compared to what might have been,” he says. “The recuperation is a day-by-day process but we’ll be empowered by what we’ve managed to transcend.”
The Invisible’s cause is helped by being at the centre of an incredibly talented musical community based in and around south London but stretching far beyond the capital. “I feel a connection to a lot of artists and we’ve grown up with an environment of sharing work and supporting each other,” says Okumu, whose outfit are heavily involved with a host of successful artists, ranging from Hot Chip to Polar Bear and exciting newcomer Jessie Ware, whose record Okumu produced. “It’s something we continue to do even as we carve out our own niche as a band.”
And given just how poignant that niche is, we wish Dave and the band the speediest of recoveries and returns to where they belong … on stage.
by Ben Olsen
Rispah is out now.
Listen to Protection, here
Posted: 17 July 2012
