Stray Planets return with Are You Real, Cristobal Leedy?, an EP blending surreal humour, nostalgia, and digital-age unease. In this interview, they explore inspiration, collaboration, and the art of feeling unreal.
1. Your new EP Are You Real, Cristobal Leedy? feels like both a continuation and a reinvention of your earlier work. How did your creative process evolve between Messed Up and this new collection?
I don’t think there was an evolution in my own creative process, maybe a slight evolution in the nature of my collaboration with Rian (in so far as we know each other better). ‘Artificial Love’, for instance, is based off a very early instrumental I recorded before I learned to write lyrics. ‘Hallucinations’ started as a melody/chord progression hummed/played into my phone drunk four years ago. Stuff often evolves in a non-linear, vague way, for me anyway.
2. The EP’s title track reflects on “the strange unreality of making art in the algorithmic age.” What inspired you to explore that tension between authenticity and artificiality so directly?
That track was inspired by a YouTube comment from a probable bot called Cristobal Leedy that read, “Truly astonishing beat and music”. The idea of someone obsessing over whether a person who likes them is real or not, wishing they were, knowing they’re probably not, appeals to me.
Probable bots often pop into my Instagram inbox telling me I’m great, likely trying to scam me, and on some level I think I’m happy to be scammed as long as they keep the compliments coming. It’s amusingly tragic also to contrast love from bots with the indifference of real people.
My primary fanbase at the minute are TikTok dancers looking for paid collaborations, showering me with generic praise. Part of me wants to see what an “Hallucinations” TikTok dance would look like and a greater part of me wants to bring them all together and form a TikTok dancer supergroup. Alas, Instagram forbids me from responding, some kind of protective scam blocker thing I cannot override. Reminds of the time I got a telemarketing call about toothpaste where I effused about the aesthetic beauty of Aquafresh and in the end it was they who wanted to hang up.
Also, Cristobal’s photo looks real so maybe he is real. I really hope he is… maybe… well maybe not now at this stage.
Also, I always like the idea of giving pathos to non-living things. I anonymously wrote songs about pasta sauces once and found I could empathise with the crappy ones perpetually on special offer.
3. You’ve described Your Revolution as a song about AI’s inability to suffer — which is such a fascinating concept. How do technology and emotion intersect in your songwriting?
Not sure how technology intersects with emotion — every song I write is based on some emotion though. I find they’re no good otherwise. That song suggests that the constant low level anxiety of being alive is a privilege/power we humans will always have over our would-be robot overlords. Not sure if that paints a bleak picture or not.
4.“Hallucinations,” featuring Dara Kiely of Gilla Band, has this vivid, technicolour energy. Can you tell us how that collaboration came about and what Dara brought to the track’s vision?
I’ve known Dara a long time, first met him when he was a kid doing work experience in the now defunct Asylum Studios. He liked my early anonymous food-based material, initially not being aware it was me. Dara’s voice is great, sort of like a damaged crooner. In the studio, he has great instincts, and is very discerning, more so than me. I quite like the Care Bears movie soundtrack for instance (I wrote that in jest and am right now listening to said soundtrack assuming I liked it but it is in fact quite bland).
5. Your music often feels like it’s time-traveling — weaving elements from 60s psychedelia to futuristic synth textures. What eras or artists most influenced ‘Are You Real, Cristobal Leedy?’?
Rian would mention some of MGMT’s recent work as a production reference, though I’m not sure how much of that came through in practice. He’s generally drawing on a vast palette. I think I was trying to write a post-modern surf song a la “Bros” by Panda Bear with “Your Revolution” which you can sort of hear in the verse melody maybe. The chorus melody is a bit Sonic 2-ish I think though. From a songwriting perspective, I’m generally drawing on lots of things unconsciously, and always I suppose indebted to my old faves from when I was starting out — Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach, Ennio Morricone, High Llamas and such.
6. You’ve said you make the kind of music your 19-year-old self would want to stumble upon. What do you hope today’s 19-year-olds feel or discover when they hear this EP for the first time?
I just hope they like it. I genuinely don’t know if there are any 19-year-olds out there like 19-year-old me. I sort of hope not, for their sake.
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