I started recording this album in 2021. Over eighteen months or so I recorded a church organ in central Margate, a friend’s celesta and piano in the West Midlands, my Moog Grandmother and a bunch of tuned percussion. Some of the arrangements are obviously influenced by Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. I have a long-standing interest in laying three / four time signatures over four/four rhythms and vice versa, so there is a fair bit of shifting between rhythmical gears on some of the tracks.
During the writing phase, I was listening to a lot of Clint Mansell, Hans Zimmer and Jonny Greenwood soundtracks. I was generally just trying to convey emotion and tell a story.
I used Logic to edit my keyboard parts and I had to enlist the help of mysterious organ player (mysterious because I don’t want to get them in trouble) as church organs are massively hard to play. I also was lucky enough to work with Penny Anderson, who can play almost anything; she played all of the cello and violin parts and would only accept fizzy wine as payment. Thankfully, Penny was able to translate my scrawled notation into proper scores.
The whole album sat on my hard drive as I didn’t really think anyone would be interested in it, but eventually I decided to send a few bits to Colin Morrison and he rescued the whole thing from obscurity. As ever, I went to my very good friend Ieuan Edwards (master linocut print wizard) for some bespoke artwork. Ieuan’s imagination ran wild after I told him about the synth-meets-organ vibe. Within days he had the finished a print, ready for Jules Bigg to do the final graphic design work. I also had to write a few late-night texts to my mate Dan Ecclestone from Ember Rev, along the lines of ‘Can I play a G major scale over an E minor chord with a D bunged on top?’
I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such talented people who indulge my obsession of making slightly wonky music.