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Kat power!

You've been described as Manchester's best-kept secret. Where have you been hiding?

Autokat

"We've not so much been hiding as keeping a low profile of late, really. We've been playing music as Autokat for quite a while now, but it's only in the past year or so that we've started to take it more seriously.

"For the latter part of last year, we were holed up in The Unit, our practice room in Ancoats, recording our album and rehearsing. We've started to gig more regularly over the last couple of months and hope to do a lot more live shows in the future."

The likes of the Guardian, Independent and NME have all been full of praise for you before. Does that put pressure on you to succeed?

"No, not at all. We've had quite a few nice things written about us in the past and about our album, but we try not to take too much notice, otherwise we'd get too wound up if we got any bad reviews; after all, it's only one person’s opinion.

Autokat live

"You can put too much importance on what people write about you. Ultimately, people will make their own minds up when they listen as to whether they like it or not. We put pressure on ourselves more; not necessarily to succeed, but to produce music we're really into and can feel proud about."

You're long-time compatriots of The Longcut and Nine Black Alps. Do you think you can follow in their successful footsteps?

"To be honest, we never really think about it like that. They're both great bands in their own right but we're in a different position to them. We're releasing records on an independent record label, with a small budget, but we're happy to have the freedom to put out pretty much what we want, when we want. If we sell loads of records then great, but we'll still carry on doing what we're doing regardless, as we enjoy it so much."

Why is the album called Late Night Shopping?

"It's in reference to what kids say round these parts when they're off on the rob at night! It's not something that we partake in obviously, but we used it as a working title and it ended up sticking, as we thought it encapsulated the general theme of the album."

There are two instrumentals on there. What made you decide to dispense with lyrics twice?

"We didn’t dispense with the lyrics, there aren't meant to be any! We've always played instrumentals live and they've always played an important part of what we do. We don’t always base our songs around the vocals and by doing this, it allows us a lot more freedom musically - although there are vocal harmonies on them.

"We feel that songs don’t necessarily have to be storytelling vehicles and that sometimes, the music is enough to convey a feeling or mood. Sometimes, you can force lyrics onto a tune to make it a song to the detriment of the music."

When you do have lyrics, they're urgent and passionate. Is it important to you that your message comes across?

Autokat

"We don’t have a set agenda as such and aren’t really trying to portray one message. Each song has its own meaning and we try and get that across as clearly as possible, either through the lyrics or the music. We try not to be too specific though, as we feel that songs should be open to a degree of interpretation by the listener."

What's all this about the album being recorded in someone's front room?

"Ha ha... the vast majority of it was recorded at The Unit, but we did record a few parts in Dave's front room when we first started it. We've used studios before and have never been 100 percent satisfied with the results.

"There tends to be too many constraints, especially when it comes to time and money. We've found that the producer or engineer would often want to put too much of their own slant on it or would be too rigid in their recording techniques - maybe this is due to time and cost - but recording it ourselves has given us full freedom to do what we want and has allowed the songs to develop and grow as we've recorded them, rather than them being an exact replica of a rehearsed live song."

What does the future hold for Autokat?

"Dave [guitarist] has been busy producing other bands records at the Unit too, including It’s A Buffalo and The Lead Balloons; this is something he wants to do more of in future and we'd quite like to have a pop at remixing some tracks for other artists too.

"Our thoughts have already started drifting in the direction of our next album and we're going to start recording tracks for it very soon. We'll also be releasing another single in a couple of months and we're starting work on a couple of video projects when we find the time in the next few weeks."