Born in New Zealand and shaped by London’s club culture, Flamingo Pier is the trio of Luke Walker, Dom Jones, and Brad Craig, whose path has moved through releases on Kitsuné, Soundway Records, and Razor-N-Tape Records, alongside an expanding live presence.
Photo credit: Tom Grut
More than a decade into the project, Flamingo Pier now return with their second album, ‘Woven Together’. Written, produced, and released entirely on their own terms, the record brings together the electronic foundations of their early work with the live-band approach that has become increasingly central to their sound.
Across the album, tracks including ‘Cool Nights’, ‘No Excuses’, ‘Glowdown’, and ‘Be The Same’ reflect a range of influences while maintaining the connection between dancefloor energy, live instrumentation, and the trio’s New Zealand roots.
In this conversation, Flamingo Pier discuss the making of ‘Woven Together’, their evolution from London warehouse parties to a full live band, the role of collaboration and independence in the album, and how their New Zealand community continues to shape the project.
EG: Hi guys! Welcome to Electronic Groove. It’s great to have you with us. How have you been, and how does it feel to be entering this new chapter with ‘Woven Together’ on the horizon?
Flamingo Pier: Hey, thanks for having us! We’ve been busy! It’s pretty exciting to finally be able to share another full-length record. We’d been stuck in a bit of an EP-then-tour cycle for a while, so making a full album feels like a proper new chapter for us.
EG: Flamingo Pier began in New Zealand but was shaped in many ways by your experiences in London’s warehouse and club culture. Looking back now, how much of that journey can you hear in the music you’re making today?
Flamingo Pier: A fair bit, even if it’s not on purpose. We all met in London, so technically it all started there. The whole reason we started writing was so we’d have some of our own tracks to play at our parties in Hackney Wick, so that warehouse energy is baked into where Flamingo Pier came from. We don’t sit down and try to make a London record, though. We’re more about capturing whatever we’re feeling at the time, and if some of the memories of those times sneak into a song then that’s cool with us.
EG: There’s a beautiful tension in your music between electronic production and the feeling of a live band. How has that relationship between the two sides developed over the years, and did making ‘Woven Together’ change the way you work together?
Flamingo Pier: It’s grown pretty naturally over the years. We started out making tracks for our own parties, and turning it into a live band came later, so the two sides have always fed into each other. ‘Woven Together’ was probably the most collaborative we’ve been. We cleared the schedule and wrote together with no real plan or deadline, and a lot of ideas that started out quite electronic ended up with a much more live feel once the three of us had all had a go at them. Also, bringing live drums onto a few of the tracks really helped to steer it in that direction.
EG: The album is described as distilling a decade of evolution. When you listened back to the finished record, were there elements that surprised you or made you realize just how far the project has come?
Flamingo Pier: We wrote a lot for this one and left plenty on the cutting room floor, so by the time we’d whittled it down, we were pretty close to it. Hearing it back from start to finish was the first time it felt like one piece rather than a pile of separate songs; sequencing helps with that too. One of the tracks, ‘Glowdown’, had been kicking around as a demo for a few years now, so I was pretty surprised we actually managed to finish that one!
EG: ‘Cool Nights’, ‘No Excuses’ and ‘Glowdown’ each reveal quite different sides of the album, from late-night Italo shimmer to piano-driven energy and a slower golden-hour warmth. How did you approach creating an album that could move through these different moods while still feeling unmistakably Flamingo Pier?
Flamingo Pier: Most of those tracks were started by one of us and finished by the group, so even if the first spark pulls in a certain direction, it ends up sounding like Flamingo Pier once we’ve all put our parts down. We also kept the production palette fairly tight. There’s a pretty consistent live drum sound across the record and a few signature synths that keep popping up, which ties it all together. Having Luke mix the whole album helped a lot too, because he could keep that through line tight right up until it went off for mastering.
“We started out making tracks for our own parties and turning it into a live band came later, so the two sides have always fed into each other”
EG: ‘Be The Same’ draws particularly from Outkast and Timbaland, which opens up another fascinating reference point within your sound. What is it about those artists and that era of music that continues to resonate with you?
Flamingo Pier: The drum production is the big one. The hip hop records from that era just sound so great; the drums hit hard, but there’s still loads of space around them. We snuck a big 808 sample on ‘Be The Same’ as a bit of a nod to that sound. We also love how bold the arrangements were, stripping almost everything out for a verse and letting the track breathe, then bringing in big vocal harmony stacks where it counts. With ‘Be The Same’ we wanted to pull some of that feeling into an FP track, and having our friend Lou’ana sing on it really helped get it there.
EG: New Zealand remains an important part of the Flamingo Pier identity, not only geographically but emotionally and culturally. What aspects of your roots do you think have stayed with you most strongly, even after years spent building the project in London and internationally?
Flamingo Pier: Probably the people. There’s a great community of musicians here and a few of them are all over this record. Lou’ana sings on ‘Be The Same’, Elijah White plays drums on a handful of tracks, and our regular percussionist Issac Chadderton laid down congas and bongos throughout. The festival on Waiheke is a big part of it too. It’s a chance to bring everything we’ve picked up overseas back home and share it with people here.
EG: You’ve described ‘Woven Together’ as being made entirely on your own terms. What did that independence allow you to do creatively that might not have been possible within a more conventional album process?
Flamingo Pier: It certainly let us take our sweet time (laughter)! Beyond that, not writing with a particular label in mind meant we could try ideas that might not fly normally. The flip side is that you’re the one setting the deadlines. At one point we had to pull our heads in and say ok, let’s finish this thing! Otherwise you just end up tweaking forever and sitting on a bunch of half songs.
EG: Your Waiheke Island festival and your live shows have become an important part of the wider Flamingo Pier world. How much does the experience of playing together in front of people feed back into the way you write and produce music?
Flamingo Pier: A lot. It’s all one creative world for us at this point. It’s been a juggle over the years; February is usually wiped out for the band because we’re in festival mode, but then the NZ winter flips it round, and we can hunker down and write. People we meet through the festival end up playing on our records or opening doors for the live band that we’d never have found otherwise, and playing in front of a home crowd is a good test for a track. You find out pretty quickly what works on a dancefloor, and that definitely feeds back into the studio.
EG: There’s a recurring idea of connection running through the album, between people, places, influences and moments. Was that something you consciously set out to explore, or did that theme become apparent as the record took shape?
Flamingo Pier: It wasn’t something we planned. We don’t really write to a concept; we’re more about capturing how we’re feeling in the moment. But once we looked at the tracklist, it was hard to miss. The people we’ve met and collaborated with through the festival and the parties have all left their mark on us, and we like to say we’re woven together in life and on the dancefloor. It feels a lot bigger than just the three of us now.
“This record really comes alive with a full band, so we want to get out there and connect with people that way”
EG: After a decade of evolution and now with ‘Woven Together’ opening the door to a much wider international audience, where do you feel Flamingo Pier is heading next?
Flamingo Pier: Right now it’s all about the live show. This record really comes alive with a full band, so we want to get out there and connect with people that way. Making it also opened our sound up in some new directions, so there’s plenty more for us and our audience to dig into from here.
EG: Thank you so much for your time. We wish you all the best with ‘Woven Together’ and everything ahead. Take care!
Flamingo Pier: Thanks so much for having us; we look forward to catching up again soon!
Flamingo Pier’s ‘Woven Together’ arrives in October 2026. Pre-order your copy here.
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