
Nostalgia sets in as winter starts to lift. Reassembled from the reclaimed parts of a concept album that clapped out before it got off the forecourt, my songs this year reflect on Englishness with a strange yearning for a time I’m not sure ever existed. Or perhaps it did but shouldn’t have. Like England’s towns, this album is a higgledy-piggledy collation of shreds and patches, ancient runes and modern anxiety. a ten-song jumble of operettas, elephants, taxidermic animals, brass bands, aristocrats, criminals and association football.
My usual - rewriting and recording my least favourite track after all the others were finished
I always come away having learned a suitcase full of new things. This year, I got a lot more confident with recording instruments with "live" effects rather than adding them digitally later, also and not to be afraid of giving the vocal high-end a boost - even with my squeaky voice.