Part 2
Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?
My joy with songwriting is to be as truthful as possible as I see things. The freedom from politeness, from fear of hurting someone or appearing unkind, all gone with songwriting. So the narrative of a song can’t really change because it's sort of journalism - there are facts that must be reported …
But the revelatory possibilities of writing are astonishing, surprising myself with how I feel about a person or a situation, for sure that is a journey. Song writing is a deep dive with your soul ... if you want it to be.
“A Ringing Bell” was that … I hadn’t acknowledged to myself even half the feelings I wrote about in that song …
Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?
I have a very, very strong focus when I am making music, or writing. Quite myopic. I can only see and hear the song …
If elements suggest themselves to me I accept them as part of the song. I think I trust my brain / mind to only engage with relevant thought for the song … I relate to complex nordic TV detectives with a huge map of suspects and incidences that they are puzzling out, it's the same with a song. I know elements are suggesting themselves for a reason ...
Sometimes I resist a song because I know the subversion in it will be total and I can’t really think or do anything else until its safe. There, I’ve never said that before ... I actually think I am rescuing a song from death, I am tasked with its life ... haha, it’s that intense.
Am laughing very hard at myself, but it's definitely true ... Hyper focus. Until the task is complete …
There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?
It is truly between awake and dreaming… it’s very easy to live there permanently … like middle brain. It's vast and magical and like an underwater sea cave or an outer space field of immense freedom, everything is allowed.
Maybe morphine is the closest to an artificial version of it … but that didn’t feel benign to me …
When you're in the studio to record a piece, how important is the actual performance and the moment of performing the song still in an age where so much can be “done and fixed in post?“
It's everything ... it really is everything.
To have a take that’s note perfect but with no soul would be such waste of experience for the listener when there is the possibility of having something rare and extraordinary …
If you are lost in the studio, if you’ve done something too many times, if you can’t “hear“ if it's what you want, then you have to ask your self if it makes you feel anything and if it's aligning you with the intention of the song then that is your take ... and yes all the clever fixes can help it ….
I record my vocal a lot … I don’t think it matters if it's one take or a comp, one line might really have been sung beautifully and another part wasn’t possible to properly live the song, that’s fine. It's the same with guitars ,drums etc … audition the lines of the song and pick a beautiful one …
On “Into the Light,” I sang in a way I have rarely done … got the lead take and then the backing vocals wanted to be wilder still. It was so joyous to do and really helped to have some sense of trust with the studio engineer.
There have been times when I have recorded as a band, one time working in Real World Studios. Time constraints made it very necessary to play as live as possible and that was ok because we rehearsed so intensely before we got there and the rehearsal was all about finding the atmosphere of the song and playing for that …
If anything was slightly off in the recording, it didn’t matter, because we got the spirit in the song …
Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?
I have mild synaesthesia. So until the whole vision of the song is complete it is very uncomfortable to listen to it. So there is a goal, I am reaching for something sonically that is very apparent and a relief when I have it.
But yes, time and familiarity with a piece once its completed, can iron out little blips that during mixing maybe felt huge …. I am more often than not pleased to meet with a song again after a few years of not listening …
Even recording a solo song is usually a collaborative process. Tell me about the importance of trust between the participants, personal relationships between musicians and engineers and the freedom to perform and try things – rather than gear, technique or “chops” - for creating a great song.
It's rare to have a telepathic bond .. when that happens, then it's swift, efficient, decisions made with a few hand gestures and nods. But if that bond isn’t there, then to find a language to speak about sound can be wildly strange …
I have had both, my first record was made very much with two minds thinking the same, maybe because we had all ready played a lot of shows together as Chris Clark played bass for early Madam shows. I think a deep mutual respect made it easier also … but there have been other times when the process could be puke-makingly stressful … but there is always alchemy, accidental sounds … performances that are unexpected and that plateau of collective madness which exists on day 5 onwards ….
I was offered a weeks recording at Real World to make an album for The Society of Sound music club and that was very pleasing to live and work together exclusively for days. No distractions, everything taken care of, all of my band at the time staying together in the complex …
I can hear that cohesion on the record, especially on the track “Marine Boy,” although maybe that stands out as we could only get the right rhythm sound by Jeff Townsin whipping a scaffold pole with an electrical cable.
There are lots of field recordings on my records … I love the mix of found and recognisable sounds being part of a piece of music. I also like the sound of the studio being on there. On a track like “Can’t Help Myself” on In Case of Emergency, I recorded the studio alarm and the stairs as I was running down them … and that’s at the end of the track..
And on “I am Your Home,” the opening ambient noise is just the desk, humming to itself …
What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?
It's another member of the team. I really feel that a studio is an ally.
I usually have the sonic landscape for my songs in my mind. But for The Glass Dress and A Ringing Bell, I had atmospheres and an emotional state as the starting point rather than specific instrumentation. The instruments were mostly played between Nick Trepka (who engineered the record) and I as it was recorded during covid, with guitar and keyboard parts from John Robertson and Adam Franklin recorded remotely and sent to us.
We would sometimes plot chords into a noise generating synth and let it play itself … For example, the pull push sounds on the track “Honey” was a visitation of a force that we didn’t expect from the synth. It was so perfect for the song which was set in the hallucinatory space of post surgery … amazingly strange.
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
No sense of emptiness, more an understanding that there is a different set of events to work at for a while. I have my own label so when a record is finished there is a time for a complete shut down, shit TV, gigs, being able to listen to music again etc. But then other things urgently need doing.
Mastering is a dark art, but I was very very happy to work with Katie Tavini on this record. I think it sounds beautiful. She was so careful. She properly cared and wanted to make it as I heard it …
Returning to the state of creativity ... working on someone else’s record, vocals maybe, is involving in a different way. I sang “Hell is Round the Corner - reincarnated” for Tricky. I relate to how exact he needs the vocal to be and that was all-encompassing for a while. But still in that creative plane of existing ... there was some slow magic working there.
I think I had said in an interview about 15 years before that he was one of two people I really wanted to work with. The other was Lee Scratch Perry … sigh.
Music is a language, but like any language, it can lead to misunderstandings. In which way has your own work – or perhaps the work of artists you like or admire - been misunderstood? How do you deal with this?
I’m just a soul whose intentions are good … that song ... sung by Nina Simone, that’s the plea isn’t it.
For sure I live a misunderstood life, maybe on purpose to remain deeply private, maybe …
Music is the truest language, it’s the most honest expression for me. In song, in performance, in the writing of it … mostly complex, elemental, essential sound.
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
There is magic in all things.
