I started thinking back to my early days of multitrack recording as a teenager, the utter joy of building up sonic worlds on a cassette four track machine, with all the sounds of my domestic existence caught up in them, the airplanes, the lawn mowers,...I started thinking back to my early days of multitrack recording as a teenager, the utter joy of building up sonic worlds on a cassette four track machine, with all the sounds of my domestic existence caught up in them, the airplanes, the lawn mowers, the buzz of the fridge and the kids coming home from school outside, breaking through into songs, barely audible but there.
I re-listened to a lot of vinyl LP’s, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake & Elliot Smith to name a few, all the records that seemed to have that special rare and original atmosphere that stands out against the polished din, at least to me.
I wrote for three months and picked out ten songs that seemed to share a destiny, they all contained an atmosphere of the strange domestic, mingling my feelings about my family, my life and the human condition.
I bought an 8 track reel to reel and spent three extraordinary weeks making “If Not Now When” alone. After 13 years with Turin Brakes, by this stage a well oiled little army of brothers, making a solo album was frankly terrifying, I panicked, I sweated, I tore off my clothes and had a few break downs but the music itself seemed beautiful so I decided it was necessary.
I’m glad I’ve done it, I’m glad it exists, I hope it finds a place in the world.
Olly.
