Q&A

Win Butler: “We tried to find our own musical language for this modern moment”

Reflektor was influenced by Haiti; what places made their

mark this time? New Orleans has a huge influence on the overall atmosphere the record was created in. It was mixed in the middle of carnival season, with Mardi Gras raging around us. Things were so crazy in the US politically, but New Orleans seems to exist out of time. You can feel all the trauma the city has survived, and it made it feel like the current crisis we face is possible to overcome. It felt like a similar soup to early punk and new wave movements in London and New York in the late ’70s, where punk kids were going to discos in Manhattan and hanging at dance halls in London. In Montreal, there’s a fascinating mix of French, African and Haitian cultures, and in New Orleans it’s hip-hop, brass music and jazz. We tried to find our own musical language for this very modern moment, where all genre and sense of clique has been evaporated.

What were the primary musical inspirations?