With their new DVD video collection "Illuminations" arriving in stores Tuesday, The Tea Party will now focus on finishing their next album, singer-guitarist Jeff Martin told JAM!
Six songs have been completed for the new album, which is titled "The Interzone Mantras". Work has been conducted at Martin's home studio in Toronto, and at larger studios when the group requires more space to create their sound.
"For the first time in about three records, we have actually written these songs in a band way, in a rehearsal way, as opposed to creating them in the studio," Martin told JAM! on Monday from his Toronto home.
"We are just kind of rediscovering how much fun it is to play in this band."
Because the album was written together as a unit, Martin says "The Interzone Mantras" (the title is an allusion to the writings of William S. Burroughs) will contain some of the heaviest work the group has ever mustered.
"Right now, it is hard to tell (how it will end up)," Martin said. "With The Tea Party records, they start off sounding like something, and end up sounding like something else. For us, ('The Interzone Mantras') is very stripped down, very, very heavy guitar rock.
"But it is very distinctly us. It is, again, a departure from our other records ... It is more guitar than I have done in a long time. It is fun for me."
Among the titles already confirmed for the album are "Lullaby," which is "very, very strong," Martin said.
Another track is titled "The Master And Margarita," after the novel by writer Mikhail Bulgakov.
"(It was written) around the time of the Bolshevik revolution. A great little book, (Bulgakov) writes that, with Communist ideals coming into play and everything being strict, Satan manifests himself in Moscow and causes havoc and causes everyone to have a good time," Martin said.
Another track is titled "Must Must". It's based on the song "Mustt Mustt (Lost In His Work)" from the 1991 album "Mustt Mustt" by the late singer and world-music titan Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
"The melody of this song is very much inspired by that song by him," Martin said. "It is totally heavy."
Martin said he wants to "bunker down" and "become a hermit" at his home studio, until the album is completed, but expects it won't surface until late summer or fall.
"I'm sure (the band's label) EMI would like it to come out yesterday," he laughed.
"It all depends. We have been asked to do a lot of European festivals in the summertime. We could do that on the strength of (the band's recent best-of compilation) 'Tangents,' but it would be nice to have this material out there. We are very excited to play it live.
"But for North America and Australia, probably 'The Interzone Mantras' won't come out until August or September."
One oft-mentioned project that could still materialize is a live album, he added.
"We definitely have enough in the vaults. Some great performances we did in Sydney, Australia, over three nights. That is probably going to make it somewhere at some point. For the most part, live albums can be fillers when the band needs them.
