Django Django’s debut album came out in January 2012 and was lavished with praise. It was “updated psychedelia that beguiles and delights” (The Guardian), “consistently mind-melting and often brilliant” (Q), “bursting with ideas” (Pitchfork) and “gloriously, unpredictably new” (Mojo). By December it had been shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and named one of the albums of the year by Rolling Stone and NME. They became known from their electric live performances full of energy, and went on to play memorable shows at festivals across the globe including as Glastonbury and Fuji Rock.

It was when Django Django were playing Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations on the final day of 2013 that producer and drummer Dave Maclean realised how far his band had come since releasing their self-titled debut album almost two years earlier. “We made what, at the time, I thought would be an obscure bedroom record and ended up playing to 60,000 people on Princes Street,” says Dave. “Every month we kept saying we were going to stop touring but the album kept growing.”

Born Under Saturn is the work of a band fired up by confidence and experience and propelled way beyond their DIY roots. It has all of the imagination of their debut self-titled album but splashed across a larger canvas. “Once we got into the studio it became obvious it would be a bigger-sounding record,” says bassist Jim Dixon. “When we were writing the lyrics there were lots of references to rebirth, turning a new page and starting something again,” says Dave Maclean. “I guess that’s something we all felt.” Like before, Django Django are blessedly oblivious to genre rules. “A lot of it has to do with growing up being more into mixtapes than albums,” Dave says. “I think that sensibility comes through. Since I was a kid I’ve always tried to see the connections and threads through music.” Recorded at Netil House in east London and Angelic Studios in Banbury, Born Under Saturn saw the song writing split four ways with Dave also producing the record.

Lyrics often emerged naturally from the sound of the music. There are dark dramas like Found You, which draws on the myth of Faust’s deal with the devil, and Shot Down, a bloody tale of crime and betrayal. Jim wrote the sighingly beautiful Beginning to Fade while contemplating writer’s block and the atmospheric, synth-driven High Moon, says Dave, is about people who “come alive at night”. Born Under Saturn expands on the slippery, indefinable brilliance of the debut, finding magic in the unexplored spaces between different kinds of music, and never doing the same thing twice.

“Django Django are back with a big bang” – The Guardian

“The Ideal 21st Century pop band” – Mixmag