Q&A

Mj on “using the recording process as a crutch” Had you been planning to go more electronic for some time?

We needed to move on and do something different. So we tried to boil it down, existentially, to ‘What can we do and still be Hookworms?’ A lot of it came from MB’s XAM Duo project, which has been quite influential, incorporating more of the electronics he was doing. We wanted to make a more danceable record.

How did the process of starting afresh, after the studio flood, play into

Microshift? We had a few sessions where MB and JN would come round to my flat and we’d play with synths. We couldn’t really use any loud amps, so I think that helped with the songwriting process. It was just a different way of working than before, when it was more of a rockist set-up.

The album’s themes are often traumatic. Apart from the flood,

while we were making the record I went through a break-up, plus there was my dad’s illness and the death of a close friend of the band. It was only when we’d finished the album that everything hit me. I think I’d been using the recording process as a crutch, really. But I think the experience has brought us all closer together. It’s definitely the most rewarding time I’ve had making a record, at least with Hookworms.