delphic recollections

August 4 2011

I’ve just arrived at the barn again. James thought writing in the flat was getting stale, so we sorted a deal to use Doves’ barn studio out in Warrington. It’s quiet and remote. We tend to write alone these days, so I drove down solo. Stopped at the farm shop on the way and overbought for lunch - good distraction. 

I guess we’ve spent way too much time together. On the road, in the studio, living together for years. We should have taken a proper break - but album 2’s been hanging over us and the pressure is mounting. We got signed for a fair bit of money, they invested in us big time - and whilst the first album was (mostly) critically acclaimed - they need us to sell more on this second, so Tim our manager is on at us ‘you need singles, boys’. It’s like a mantra. Every time the phone rings I know what’s coming.

So I’m avoiding synths for a bit and just focusing on trying to write choruses. But it’s hard. I’m a bit lost to be honest. And my health anxieties have come back again - at least it gives me something else to focus on rather than getting lost in the void on this album. 

We had the name ‘Collections’ before we even released ‘Acolyte’. Back then we imagined it as a more floaty, ambient beatless type record with Thom Yorke style vocals, but it doesn’t feel like we can release that record. I wish we’d signed to an indie label that had not only given us more freedom, but encouraged us to go down more abstract and artistic paths. Instead it feels like we’re dragging ourselves through a corridor of fluorescent lights being told to ‘’make it bigger, make it sell.’’

I feel the pressure to deliver hit records, and if I don’t? Then what? I have no plan B. What, I become a lawyer at age 29? Tell everyone it didn’t work out with the music thing and go get a normal job? No, I have to keep going. I have to make this record count. 

We’ve been working on this song Atlas for ages, feels like fleetwood mac in the verses and Radiohead in the middle bit. We’re trying to stitch together all these fragments. There’s a lot of interesting ideas going on, but nothing feels certain. And I need more. More hits. Fuck. I’m lonely here man, I’ll head back early to see Jo for dinner, and then I’ll throw some beats together at night on my laptop to try and inspire the others. God knows how she’s coping, my head is completely somewhere else. I just don’t think I can justify living in reality until I’ve solved this. What if she leaves me? Can I blame her if she does? But what choice do I have? I’ve worked my whole life for this opportunity - it means everything but it’s the hardest thing in the world. I wish me and the guys were closer right now, maybe we could figure it out together. Instead it feels like we don’t want to spend time together - I think we’re all struggling.

And yet, deep down, I know there’s still something in this record. Even in the mess and the pressure, I can feel it flickering - the sense that if we get this right, it could be both the most artistic thing we’ve done and still connect wider. That thought keeps me going. I just don’t quite know how to bridge the gap yet - how to stitch the beauty we hear in fragments into something undeniable. But I believe it’s there. At least I hope it is.

I also can’t make my mind up as to whether we should accept this gig offer in Indonesia - it’s a corporate gig for a lot of money but the travel time will fuck me. Long haul, time zones. I think best we focus and keep chipping away rather than procrastinating any longer. Lock in. If we don’t release something next year, we’re done. 

Rick