04 Jul, 2008 Twin Albums ?
Even though we are technically on a holiday break over these weeks, it
seems that the creative momentum continues as I exchange ideas daily from Sicily with keyboardist Andy Gillespie – on a new song idea with the working title ‘Shaman’.
We really are flowing with ideas at the moment and as I already
mentioned a few weeks ago I do feel that we are possibly writing two
albums simultaneously at present. With every passing day I genuinely
feel that is becoming a real possibility. That would indeed be a fine
occurrence – here in our thirtieth year – just to know that far from
feeling jaded through time etc, that the very opposite seems to be
occurring and that creatively speaking it may be that ‘we have more
gas in the tank’ currently than we did as obsessive teenagers
desperate to make a name for ourselves!
That said a not so young chap named Paul Weller kind of came up with
the same thing fairly recently and very good they tell me it was too.
Although I have to say once again that were it to be the case we would
not look to release a double album as such, more like two albums
released within one year. That would be more than fine by me!
In any case we push on at the moment and hopefully it will all pay off
with the release of new music that has real force and quality.
The Glasgow writing sessions went really well and we thoroughly
enjoyed our time spent back working in our hometown. Being as busy as we were the days certainly raced in and it became difficult keeping
track of time, in fact I could hardly believe it when the day was upon
us and it was time to pack up and head for London to perform at last
week’s Mandela concert. But I guess that is a good sign as there has
been periods in the past were time in the studio has seemingly dragged on and on and on. Not so this time!
While in Glasgow we never managed as planned to track with former
Minds, Derek, Brian and Mick. The idea was that we would try and
quickly as possible bang out a couple of newly recorded tracks that
may or may not have been included in a future to be released EMI
compilation. In the end it was not to be – least for the moment – and
in any case the very idea of the compilation is also looking somewhat
less certain. But then again timing is everything and therefore surely
the possibility could arise in the future.
Lastly, I don’t in general listen to much music in periods when we are
working intensely on our own but I have been impressed by Emmanuel
Jal. A future world star if ever, least if Peter Gabriel is to be
believed – and lets be honest when is Gabriel ever wrong. Emmanuel
nontheless impressed so many at last week’s Hyde Park
extravaganza. Check him out for yourself right here.