Sylvan Esso think you should splurge on good-quality yogurt

Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn have built a reputation for evolving their low-key electro-pop sound since they first emerged in 2014 with a self-titled debut and the single "Hey Mami." Their past records have swung between dustier, fragile textures on Free Love and more dance-forward, glitch-tinged production on No Rules Sandy, while maintaining a recognizable Sylvan Esso identity. Their newest record, Ow ∞, released this past Friday, represents a pronounced shift in approach. The duo traded some of the modular drums and glossy dance elements of earlier work for a palette that leans on turn-of-the-century breakbeats and distorted guitars; a few songs evoke bands like Soul Coughing and Blur, particularly on tracks such as "Hot Slob" and "Concrete Glen." Even with that retro touch, the album still uses bleeps, bloops and contemporary vocal production to keep ties to their electronic roots. To mark the release, Meath and Sanborn answered a brief questionnaire that mixed technical preferences with personal anecdotes. Sanborn called his laptop — specifically a lineage of MacBooks — indispensable for work and admitted he prefers not to do important typing on touchscreens. Meath reminisced about a T-Mobile Sidekick as her favorite past gadget and joked she wished phones were food replicators; she also described stepping outside with a notebook when she needs to focus. The pair shared other creative habits and wishes: Sanborn described escaping creative blocks by playing an unfamiliar instrument and recounted a recent accidental week without a phone after running it through the washer and dryer; Meath listed Skyward Sword as a formative game and said she recently bought Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour at a Brooklyn bookstand. When asked what’s worth splurging on, Sanborn singled out high-quality yogurt. The duo summed up their biopic tagline as "Ow ∞."