Timber Timbre on La Frette

How can I make this interesting…?

Sincerely, Future Pollution started out as the group’s first “electronic” effort. Pretty classic. Cliche even. Vocoders (but no autotune.) Thankfully, we very quickly realised that we have no business making electronic music or dance music or anything hip or remotely fun like that. So we ended up just doing “us” again; much the same but a little different. Different place. Different pallet and instrumentation. Different songs.

A year ago we took our musical odds and ends from Montreal and moved into Studio La Frette, just outside of Paris, for about two weeks. We’d been hearing about this legendary Chateau/studio for years - many friends and acquaintances had spoken so highly of the place. A year prior to that we’d visited and were smitten by the house, the environment; the garden, and the anomalous collection of synthesisers and guitars and machinery. Not to mention the host, Olivier Bloch Lane and his illustrious staff.

Now, I don’t mean this in a pejorative way but if Wes Anderson were going to make a film about a recording studio, this would be the place. The experience was magical. I don’t think we even left the building except for a cigarette or to restock the wine. We’d work all hours and sort of tumble in-and-out of the kitchen to dine on delicious meals prepared by Elizabeth, the wonderful in-house chef and hostess.

Every morning we’d be greeted by the beaming faces of the engineers - Nico, who’d arrive by bicycle, and Jonathan, by a sputtering Austin mini. Olivier, the spirit guide would swoop in and fill your cup and vanish again for a few hours, returning later with the OBx or Clavinet or Farfisa he’d promised. Though it was the Fairlite sampler that captured our imagination the most I think. And as lovely as the sunlight-bathed salon was, it felt like we spent the majority of our time down in the crypt, hunched over that strange machine.

I could have stayed there forever. It was such a reprieve from my own grey life at the time. I felt somehow distanced from all the anxiety that seemed to be permeating the general consciousness, no doubt from the terrorist manifestations and political turmoil of the year. When our two weeks were up I went to Paris to work out the words, as many of the songs were without at that stage. I was welcomed back to La Frette for another week to record voice, this time in a smaller house on the riverside. It was springtime and I had to compete with the birds, who are all over the album if you listen closely.

I am told that Sincerely, Future Pollution is an extremely dark record, and beyond that, it has a message that is bleak and pessimistic. Now I certainly don’t think I have any right to protest that, but while ostensibly this dystopic environment is so well-described, it’s very difficult for me not to be triggered by a hopeful note, and not to be transported to that bright and idyllic paradise where we joked around and laughed while we made that thing.