Superorganism is the envy of aspiring musicians all over the world right now. In a freakishly short space of time, the London-based collective has cultivated a distinctive sonic and visual identity, consequently gaining a global fanbase.
The eight-piece international phenomenon emerged in the early months of 2017 with the genre-defying single, ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’ Shortly after its upload to Soundcloud, the likes of Frank Ocean and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig were spinning ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’ on their respective radio shows, while many of the internet’s most influential music publications heaped on praise.
This sparked a hype-wave that continued through four subsequent single releases. Suffice to say, the band’s forthcoming debut LP is one of the year’s most anticipated. But lead vocalist Orono Noguchi remains calm amid the torrent of expectation – an especially notable feat considering she’s only just turned 18 years old.
“When we started talking about who we are and doing interviews, at that point the record was pretty much done,” says the Japanese-born teenager, who attended high school in the USA. “That was the end of August [2017], so we didn’t really let the hype get to us. It’s the same [as for anyone]: don’t be an arsehole, regardless of how many followers you have.”
Superorganism consists of eight individuals; seven performers and one person in charge of video content and live visuals. Creating a unified stylistic identity could be quite difficult with so many hands on deck, but the secret to their success involves a comprehensive divergence from convention.
“What we do is pretty much an ideal form of anarchy,” says Noguchi, who is easily the group’s youngest member. “There aren’t any rules or a specific way that we work. Even when we were working on the album we didn’t have a sit-down board meeting where we were like, ‘OK so debut album, what’s it going to be about?’ It’s more like, ‘Hey check out this cool new tune that I created.’ And then we’d add our own special bits to it. It’s just magic.”
Stylistically, the band evades simple classification. It’s not quite indie rock, synth pop, electronic-pop-rock or psychedelic new wave. The self-titled album incorporates elements from all of these strands of alternative music, but doesn’t strictly align itself with any.
“I think it’s quite normal for it to sound fucked up and weird when you have lots of members in the band,” Noguchi says. “When we started the band we started a collaborative Spotify playlist where we added a bunch of songs that we liked. We all have quite an eclectic taste and a very open mind towards not just music, but everything in general.”
Superorganism includes a range of evocatively titled songs, such as ‘It’s All Good’, ‘Everybody Wants to Be Famous’, ‘Nobody Cares’ and the self-referential ‘SPRORGNSM’. The lyrics follow suit, encompassing absurdist imagery, themes of self-empowerment and contrasting insecurity, cultural critique and layered pop culture references.
Noguchi is the band’s chief lyricist and she says the thematic focus is less mediated than it might seem.
“I don’t think about how people are going to read into my lyrics. I mean, I do think about it, I guess – English has been my favourite class [at school] and I love analysing texts and I love layers of figurative language and stuff like that. But it mostly comes out of having conversations with everyone and just taking in what the world has to offer.
“It’s not really like, ‘OK I’m going to write some lyrics that will represent all of us [in the band]. It’s more of a natural occurrence, just like everything else we do.”
