Slug Speaks On April’s New Atmosphere Album, “The Family Sign”

38-year-old rapper Slug of the Minneapolis-based Hip Hop duo Atmosphere recently chopped it up with Pitchfork.com to discuss Atmosphere’s upcoming album titled The Family Sign and more.

Slug revealed that the name of the album was influenced primarily by family and the growing that has taken place over the past few years.

“There’s a lot of my life and my family-ness involved. We’re all reaching that point,” said Slug when asked about the name of the new album. “When you’re 20-something, you can be whatever. But as you get older, you start reaching these signs that point your life the way it’s supposed to go and shit. In the band, we’ve all escaped the whole associate-friend thing– you know, people who you’ve seen and don’t really know but you’ll sit and talk in a bar with them. We’ve all gotten past that and now we’re back to our core family and friends. And our audience, too.”

Fans of the duo can expect what’s described as a “Minneapolis sound” on The Family Sign; a combination of sounds influenced by the music the group grew up on.

“It’s one of those things that really reminds me of that Minneapolis sound. Prince, the Replacements, Hüsker Dü– we’re all just bad imitations of the shit we loved,” Slug explained to Pitchfork.com. “We may say that we do it wrong because we didn’t have anyone to teach us; we had to figure it out ourselves…That’s how I characterize the Minneapolis sound.”

Consisting of Slug and producer Ant, Atmosphere have been releasing music together since the ninety’s and released their last studio album in 2008.

The Family Sign will be released on April 12, 2011.