You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

Phoenix is a Grammy-winning band from Versailles, France.

They started putting out music in 1999 and in June 2017, they released their sixth album, Tiammo.

In this episode, singer Tomah Mars and guitarist Laurent Broncoitz break down the song Tiammo, the title track from that album.

The first song is from the band, I think it's from the band, I think it's from the band.

Practical details are very important in art.

A few art critics get it, but the one that do, they understand that, you know, Renaissance is linked to the pigments, you know, the oil they were using.

All those things, they make a difference in the end.

I'm Bronco.

Laurent Broncoitz plays the guitar usually, but this time, on this album, less guitar more keyboard.

Our process is based on a stream of consciousness, so we are all sitting in a studio.

It's a place called La Gatellirique in Paris, it's an old opera theater.

This song, it started with a loop, percussion loop.

This album is the first one we did with Abelton, live.

We wanted something new because the routine is what we are trying to escape.

So when you learn a new software, a new instrument, you have this genuine feeling of being a beginner and we love this feeling.

We are always looking for this emotion, I think.

This teenage emotion of being a semi-professional.

That's our motto, I guess.

So we have three occurrences of Abelton that are linked to a network.

It's not a centralized brain, it's like three brains, which, for us, is very important because we hate, you know, the monarchy structure.

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