But away from the cult of Ashcroft vs. McCabe and the zeitgeist-capturing Gorillaz, Tong has over the years been hard at work on his own projects, the latest of which is Erland & The Carnival.
“This is the first time I've really started a band myself,” he explains in soothing, understated tones. “It was me and the singer, Erland [Cooper] - we kinda met and got chatting and found out we had a lot of influences in common - British folk music and that sort of thing - and we just started writing with each other. We started off quite acoustically as well - quite traditional - and then we just got more electric and stranger and kinda more modern, I suppose.”

Filling out the trio with drummer David Nock, Erland & The Carnival released an eponymous debut just over a year ago but are already fingering the trigger for their sophomore effort, 'Nightingale'.
“I think we just didn't stop writing. We kinda finished the first album quite a while ago - probably like 18 months ago, and it didn't come out for a while - so we've just continued writing ever since then and building up the songs we kinda had.

“There was a conscious decision to try and take the template of the first album, which was modernising the old folk songs - that was the idea of it: we've still kinda kept that but just tried to make the music more 21st century. It obviously still has elements of things from the past, but production-wise and sound-wise it's a much more modern-sounding record.”

The band used an old ship on the Thames to record 'Nightingale', their studio located in a dank compartment below the water line - a move that no doubt contributed to the record's swirling, slow poison production.
“It was really dark and kinda echoey, and we just went there and thought, 'This is fantastic'. I mean, it's not a pleasant place to spend time,” Tong laughs. “There are no luxurious sofas or table tennis tables, which is a good thing because it stops you from getting too distracted with other things and you can just completely focus on the record. You're constantly hearing strange creaks and echoey vibrations. It definitely influenced the music.”

‘NIGHTINGALE’ IS OUT MARCH 4.