NO TREASURE BUT HOPE

CITY SLANG, 2019 Their latest, inspired by Staples’ home on the Greek island of Ithaca and recorded almost live

For the writing of this record, being close to the sea has been so important. It feels like the songs have a different kind of outlook, a different perspective, and that’s something I really appreciate for me here. By the time we were halfway through touring The Waiting Room, the way we played music together had changed. The energy between us had almost transcended the material, and I think that sewed the seeds of how to approach this album, about putting the emphasis on this thing that exists between us. It felt really natural to say, ‘Let’s just rehearse acoustically and see where this takes us.’ We sat around a piano and discovered these songs. From that we thought, ‘We should play this live, try and find a studio that allows us to be close to each other without much separation.’ The old Vogue studios [now Midilive], in Paris had just reopened, we walked in and I thought, ‘Yeah, this is the place.’ After all this studio-heavy approach to making records, I felt like the most progressive thing we could now was to do something so human and away from technology. It’s a reaction to how we live and how music is made now, and how we’ve made music for the last seven or eight years. So to turn away from that cerebral way of making music felt exciting at this time. We thought if we take more than five or six days in the studio to record these new songs then we’re doing something wrong! It was so quick, I’m still trying to understand the record myself – I’m used to sitting in my studio considering everything for quite a long time! So time will tell. It’s a new way. I like the fact it’s different, and that we had a great time making it.