New album more organic, says Ecstasy of St Theresa's Jan P. Muchow

Ecstasy of St Theresa are among the most highly respected of Czech rock and pop groups. Formed by producer Jan P. Muchow in the early 1990s, the band went through a number of line-up changes before reaching its current form of Muchow and singer Katerina Winterova, who is also an actress at the National Theatre. Four years after their last CD Slowthinking, Ecstasy of St Theresa are back with a new collection, Watching Black. I discussed the latest album with Jan P. Muchow at his small studio, just off Wenceslas Square.

How does the new album differ from the previous one?

"From our point of view it's different in the way...we think we communicate more. The previous album Slowthinking was kind of introverted and fragile sounding and this time we wanted to communicate more with the on the outside, or about the outside.

"Sound-wise we wanted to go more organic sounding, or a bit more dirty. Because the previous album we thought was too clinical, too clean. So now we wanted to feel the human touch more."

It's about four years since your previous album came out - why did it take so long?

"It's like two parts why it took so long. The first part is that when the record comes out it's not the end of the life of the record. We spent almost a year touring and promoting it, we made three EPs, we made a DVD version of the record.

"Then it came out in the UK so we spent some time as well promoting it there. And then we played at some festivals, so it took almost two years to support Slowthinking.

"Then we started to look ahead and to work on the new record and then came about the pregnancy of the singer."

Your new single is Watching Black White Looking, but it's not the most poppy song on the new album - why did you choose that particular track as a single?

"I thought it makes it clear what the record is about. If we chose for example the song where there is a duet with Selfbrush [Wrong Time, Wrong Place] it's maybe more poppy and people would maybe enjoy it more.

"But I would think as a pilot single it would not tell the truth about the album. I wanted to make a clear sign of what the record is basically about."

Listen to selected tracks at www.eost.cz