There’s a church called St Mary’s in Lastingham. When you step inside, it feels like its 1,371-year history has soaked into the stone and timber. Time hasn’t just passed through the place, it lives there, in every brick, beam and pew.
I feel the same about some acoustic instruments. My old piano, a 1950s upright, always felt like it held echoes of everything it had ever played. Old songs, long-forgotten lessons, they still seemed to vibrate inside it.
I’ve always been drawn to the way certain places and objects hold on to the ghosts of what’s come and gone.
Thirty-three years ago, Vienna by Ultravox was re-recorded at Berwick Street Studios in London. It’s one of my favourite songs. Whenever I hear it, I’m transported, not to a clear memory, but to a feeling of my mam.
So when I read that La Nouvelle Musique had recorded their new album there, I wanted to know if they felt it too, that sense of history, solemnity, reverence. Whether it somehow soaked into the recording process. Whether the place left its mark on the music.
Their new album is breathtaking in its poetry and scope. From wintery finger-picked guitars and haunting vocals, to cinema-esque pieces with horns, timpani and strings, it has something for everyone.
In this episode, we talk about the husband and wife duos songwriting process, navigating creative disagreement, hopes for the future of independent music and as always much more.
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