Elbow kondigt nieuw album aan
De titel van de eerste single is misschien een beetje verwarrend.
Elbow brengt op 19 november een nieuw album uit, ‘Flying Dream 1’, via Polydor. Ze deelden ze hun eerste single, het delicate The Seldom Seen Kid, via een video. Ja, het nummer deelt zijn titel met het met de Mercury Prize bekroonde album van de band uit 2008, ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ en dat komt omdat beide titels zijn geïnspireerd door de overleden vriend van frontman Guy Garvey, Bryan Glancy, die in 2006 plotseling stierf en de bijnaam "seldom seen kid' door Garvey's vader. Mark Thomas regisseerde de video.
Garvey had dit te zeggen over het nummer, in een persbericht: Whilst we were recording, the realities of lockdown meant that I often only got to hear the music the lads had been making in their homes in Manchester late at night when the house was still. The first thing I heard was what you hear, the drums leading into a beautiful, daring, woodwind arrangement. I was expecting a piano, not a clarinet, but Craig’s creation perfectly encapsulated my mood at that point and the lyrics came out in the order you hear them.
“It struck me that Bryan meeting my wife Rachael would have been something to witness, a joint charm offensive of grand proportions as both are proud and brilliant and a little bit naughty. In my mind at that point, there was no better thing than watching my best friend dance with the woman I love.”
Elbow schreef het album op afstand in hun thuisstudio's. Daarna kwamen ze persoonlijk bijeen en perfectioneerden de nummers in het lege Brighton Theatre Royal, waar ze ook het album opnamen. “Hiring a two hundred year old theatre that has never in its history been closed for so long was something that could only be done under the circumstances,” zei Garvin in een eerder persbericht, “nice to turn it on its head in that way.”
“Recording in a splendid generous space with no audience was something that throws an anchor in the times that the record was made in,”, voegde hij eraan toe.
Garvey zei dat het opnemen van het album de leden van de band de tijd gaf om bij te praten op een manier die ze niet konden tijdens de lockdown. “We don’t phone each other for a chat”, zegt hij. “We don’t talk about life outside the music until we’re together. These hushed, night-time missives told us how each other were doing. When we finally got together, all that was to do was record the songs, honor them with amazing additional singers and players in a gorgeous space and catch up. It was beautiful.”
Over het geluid en de invloeden van het album zei Garvey: “We realized we were making a record free of the usual creative guidelines. We love patient, quiet, whole albums like the last Talk Talk records. John Martyn’s Solid Air and Bless the Weather, PJ Harvey’s Is This Desire, Chet Baker Sings, The Blue Nile’s Hats. Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. We’ve always written songs like this, but it felt natural to make an album that focuses on the gentler side of our music.”
De toetsenist van de band, Craig Potter, produceerde het album, net als bij de laatste vijf albums van de band.