Lime Cordiale Walk Clash Through New Idris Elba Team Up 'Cordi Elba'

Lime Cordiale don’t do things by halves.

So when the pair – Louis and Oli to their mates – decided to bring someone into the fold, only the best would do.

In the end, they plucked for a modern day icon: actor, musician, national treasure Idris Elba links up with Lime Cordiale for their new mini-album.

Out today – January 14th – it allows Idris Elba to cut loose, adding some of his own ideas to Lime Cordiale’s potent alt-pop brew.

Take lead single ‘Holy Moley’. Says Louis: “Idris wrote most of the lyrics, I know it’s about the danger of alcohol within the entertainment industry but I think there are lyrics that he didn’t completely explain to us. ‘Apple Crumble’ and ‘What’s Not To Like’ were a bit more literal, so I love the fact that even we don’t know the depth of this song. You’d have to ask Idris!”

The lyrics contain numerous in-jokes, something fans are just going to have to unpick on their own time.

Oli adds: “For anyone that was at our show in Sydney, you’ll probably have a laugh at the ‘I don’t do shooeys’ lyric. I told the audience at The Enmore that we don’t do shooeys, but that made them chant for it even harder. Idris didn’t really know what was going on and was a second away from sculling a beer out of his shoe. I had to stop it. I couldn’t let this great man of culture drop to such a level, even though it would’ve been quite the scene…”

New mini-album ‘Cordi Elba’ is out now, with fans able to get to grips with this all-star collaboration.

Clash caught up with Lime Cordiale for the full breakdown…

Apple Crumble

I’m not sure where this song would’ve gone if it weren’t for Idris’ verses. We had the piano and a mumbled chorus down as a demo and he created this outrageous story. The best part was Idris calling his wife and asking her to say her part over the phone and into a mic whilst she was out with friends. She just had no idea what Idris was going on about!

Holy Moley

This is probably our favourite song on the album. Idris’ low vocals just really resonate through you. Maybe there’s a bit of Luther coming out of him here. Not many people can sing like this. Maybe it’s due to the fact that this is so removed from a Lime Cordiale song that we love it so much. We didn’t have to worry about creating something that sounded like us, we could suddenly move towards our hip-hop influences.

What’s Not To Like

‘What’s Not To Like’ was the first original we all wrote together. It was the turning point for us as a group. The theme and raucous-ness of this song meant we let our guards down. We relaxed, had fun and the tone was set for the rest of the recording process. We could be ourselves without anything else getting in the way.

Holiday

This is something we created for Idris to be able to drop at his next Ibiza set. Some songs on the album feel more like Lime songs but this one is definitely influenced by Idris’ background as a DJ. He created the demo that was very much the bones of what this song is now.

Ditto

You can really hear Idris as a soulful singer in this song. Coming from a DJ and hip-hop background, he didn’t think of himself as a singer but throughout our sessions that all changed. He’s obviously so well known for his unique voice and has done so much voice training throughout his movie career. All he needed to do was be in the right environment for it to all come out.

Unnecessary Things

This is the song that brought us together. Idris originally joined us in the studio to feature on a new version of this song. It only took a few hours to put down his verse and from there we moved straight into original material and kept coming back for sessions on any day Idris had available. We show coming up at the beautiful Enmore Theatre in Sydney and we all kept hinting at Idris jumping up on stage. It didn’t take long for the joke to become a reality.

Idris stole the show that night, jumping out for what became the world premiere of Idris’ version of ‘Unecessary Things’!

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Photo Credit: Tim Swallow

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