A Coming Of Age Track By Track Part 11 of 12

11. Our Heart

I wanted something really romantic but upbeat on the album. Of course it’s still very angsty, as is our way but pretty uplifting too. For a long time this song was only known as ‘Ahhhhhhhh” with no lyrics for the chorus, just a ‘ahhh-ahhh-ah-ahhh’ which eventually morphed into the words “Our Heart” and gave the song a much better sense of place.

It started with another descending piano line, although this one was more from a Brian Wilson production (The Honeys’ ‘He’s a Doll’) than the other Bobbie Gentry stalkers on the album. There’s some really subtle rhythmic differences on each line in the verse – one of those things that you’d probably never notice, but was quite important to keep the song moving along.

Lyrically it centers around the line “I exist, but that’s it, without you”. It’s kind of paraphrasing Scott Walker in his amazing documentary, 30th Century Man, where a French journalist asked what he’d been doing in an eleven year gap between albums. Scott replies “I’ve existed. That’s it” which I though was brilliantly vague whilst absolutely nailing the point at the same time.

The last forty seconds are probably my favourite bit on the album. Sometimes there’s a massive gulf between what goes on in my head and what ends up as the finished piece but this was exactly as I imagined it. The end section is edited together from about three minutes of improvisation by the boys so it has a lovely non-linear feel, spiraling away into the distance in a similar way to ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ by The Smiths, lots of interwoven guitar lines and clattering drum fills. In fact when I was mastering, the engineer said “He’s playing lead drums there” which is about right.

The Stockholm Strings are in fine form here as ever, particularly on the instrumental break where I wanted a ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ crossed with Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ dancing strings feel. You should hear them naked; stunning.

For me, the end of this song is the embodiment of the feeling you get when you’re first in love, those early days when your heart’s about pounding its way out of your chest and nothing can touch you. Total certainty and uncertainty at the same, thrilling time.

Our Heart by Ruffa Lane Records Studio Rundown Part 3.

6. Gizzard Recordings, Bow, East London

Gizzard was recommended to me by our keyboard player Art (he’s recorded a lot there) and we did pretty much all of his pianos, Fender Rhodes and a bit of Hammond organ there.

It’s predominantly an analogue recording studio and most of the gear is great vintage stuff – mad old spring reverbs, reel to reel tape machines, huge ex-BBC monitoring speakers and a mixing desk that used to belong to Mungo Jerry. The live room is straight out of the early sixties with its orange and brown decor and it feels like it’s been there a long time, even though it’s less than ten years old.

By far and away the best thing about the place is the owner Ed Deegan. For me it’s always lovely to meet someone who is totally into what they’re doing, not driven by money but by love. It’s definitely his place and a sense of pride pervades throughout everything that goes on there, not like the cold and cynical revolving door of some studios.

Ed used to work at another, more famous analogue studio called ‘Toerag’ where The White Stripes recorded Elephant. From what I gather though, Gizzard is a much more relaxed environment than its better known but more uptight cousin. I’d recommend it to anyone.

7. Soulsville SE5, Camberwell, London

Our place! We did all the vocals and percussion and some little bits of guitar between here and my flat. We hired in a ludicrously expensive Neumann U67 mic and some Neve pre amps, but got the gear at a week at a time for about the price of half a day in the studio. So a) it took all the pressure off financially and we could take as much time as we wanted to get it right, and b) we could come and go as we pleased. when you’re doing vocals, it’s important to be as relaxed as possible.

This all went swimmingly until the mad guy in the unit next to us pinned me up against the wall and started shouting at me about evil spirits and time travel. After a couple of days of this I got quite freaked out by it and we finished off at home.

Soulsville is small but sounds really nice as it’s an L-Shaped room with old terracotta tiles in the floor. It gets pretty hot in the summer and there’s far too much gear in there, but it’s our home and I’d rather be there than a typical carpeted rehearsal room. It’s nice to know you can still get quality out of your own place – Soulsville’s been on the radio, that makes me proud! (Even if Basement Jaxx got there first!)