Ishmael Ensemble

I think that feeling of hope has turned into a celebration of life on this new record. The Rebuke was very much a reaction to the times; we were deep in the pandemic and Holly was going through some serious treatment for cancer; she’s since been given the all-clear. Three of us have also become parents; this turn of the tide flowed straight into the creative process, making for a far less anxious and generally happier record. The band has also gone from strength to strength over the last couple of years; we’ve played some amazing shows and shared some amazing experiences, and this was something I wanted to capture—big songs for big stages—something I felt we’d not quite achieved on previous efforts.

Ha, stressed and relieved in equal measure! I definitely prefer making records to putting them out. There’s been many full-circle moments of thinking everyone hates it and then realising no one's heard it yet. However, I have to remind myself of how much I enjoyed the process of recording it and how proud I am of everyone’s contributions to the songs we’ve created. I’m not sure the self-doubt or imposter syndrome ever truly leaves, so perhaps it’s better to just lock in for the ride and embrace it.

It’s actually been a long time coming. I started a version of the track years ago before Ishmael Ensemble existed; it kind of marks the point at which I started to step away from making straight dance music and leaning more into the live sounds that became the band. Ironically, the finished track is the most dancefloor-orientated thing Ishmael Ensemble has released. Some tracks just fall out of the ether, but this one literally took years to get right. I guess for me it shows some things just need time and patience. We’ve just started rehearsals for the album tour, and it’s quickly become my favourite part of the set, brimming with energy and excitement.

I guess the above answer proves it’s been a while! My process isn’t massively linear; I start things, then forget about them, then find them on a hard drive years later, then forget about them, etc. I guess my vision for the new record was all about capturing a massive, expansive sound, cinematic and emotional. I kept coming back to the image of a mountain, staring at its wonder—a feeling too big to explain but at the same time deeply arresting and contemplative. For me, that was the template for the album; whenever I’d get close to finishing a song, I’d refer back to that image and ask if they could exist in the same world. I guess this was all over the last couple of years. It really started to feel like a cohesive album when the five of us spent a week at a residential studio in Mexico in March 2023. We jammed out loads of ideas and did the real studio thing that you imagine making a record looks like, staying up late working on ideas and going a bit mad. When we got back, I started working more seriously on the individual arrangements of the tracks you hear today. This is my favourite part of the process—finding that weird accidental guitar noise or synth wig out and making something from it. So much of our work starts or is finished that way. I’m a firm believer in recording everything; blink and you’ll miss it!

In so many ways. A lot of the sonic expansion has come from working with Ali Staton at Real World; he’s an incredible producer and engineer. He was able to make sense of the walls of sound I’d chuck at him and find beauty in all the screeching guitars and cacophonous drums. A real master of his craft, we spent loads of time just sharing influences and working out what the emotional centre of each track was. I think that attention to emotional detail is what sets this album apart; the last album was very collaborative, so it had lots of different voices in the room, whereas this feels much more concise and focused. The artwork reflects this vision too. I worked closely with the designer, Alfie Allen, to find a visual representation for all this esoteric stuff, which is often hard to put into words. I feel Alfie and I had a lot of common ground we could draw from, so it flowed really freely. I guess all this adds up to a far more ambitious project: working with a producer of Ali’s calibre at a place like Real World, having a string quartet on the album, or having someone as talented as Alfie create such beautiful and deep artwork that strengthens all the core elements of the album.

The strings were really fun to record; that was Ali’s suggestion. I mentioned it would be cool to add some, and he immediately got on to his friend Oli, who has this crazy home studio set up in his living room in North London. We rocked up late at night with Bethany Ley, the string arranger. Ali set up his portable recording rig in the bay window, and all of a sudden mics started appearing from the ceiling, and the players started arriving. We got four tracks down in a few hours, then made our way back down the M4 to Bristol in the early hours. I guess the other big one was Mexico; it was kind of serendipitous, to be honest. We’d just been booked to play SXSW 2023 whilst on the road, and I jokingly said in the tour van that “all we need now is a studio in Mexico to make the next record." Lo and behold, in comes an email a week later from El Ganzo residential studio near San Jose del Cabo, Baja California, inviting us to spend seven days recording with them; either the universe was working in our favour or Siri has got really, really good at its job. It was all a dream, to be honest. We touched down and made our way to the hotel, which had a pool on the roof overlooking the Pacific Ocean with whales breaking the water on the horizon, basically ridiculously idyllic, and we couldn’t quite believe our luck, but we also made sure to take full advantage of the opportunity. We worked pretty solidly into the early hours and came up with some of my favourite parts on the record in that space together.

I think the stark reality of no more gigs or work took a while to sink in; it was an incredibly unpredictable time, with glimmers of hope here and there that would quickly get taken away and turn into more cancellations and financial uncertainty. There were definitely quite a few moments where I felt like, “What’s the point?". Playing music seemed like such an insignificant and useless exercise compared to those actually saving lives and keeping the country going, so I kind of switched off and didn’t play or listen to anything for a long time. I then went full circle and started diving deep into the weirder fringes of my record collection I’d not given enough time or attention to, as well as revisiting music of my childhood. I’d inherited a lot of my granddad’s jazz albums around that time, as well as various bits from my parents—classic Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Kate Bush—I think that’s where the melancholy comes from. I think it’s quite a British emotion, to be honest. I also had a child towards the end of it all, which further solidified this yearning to look back and lean into sentimentality. I hear that stuff across the whole record when I listen back to it now.

The main thing for me was about trying to capture what we sound like live. I get such joy from being on stage and feeling the power of our various instruments at full throttle. I think we’ve developed something really special between us that allows us to pay homage to our various musical influences whilst still sounding cohesive. We used to get booked for a lot of jazz festivals and events that maybe weren’t quite right for us; we’re loud, we love cranked-up dubby basslines, and our drummer grew up playing metal, so we’d often scare the life out of the engineer working a show. There was maybe a point where we thought we were doing something wrong, but I’m glad we’ve got over that and stayed true to ourselves. Saying that there’s definitely been lots of exciting new developments along the way, not least singing myself. I’ve always been a fan of the combination of male and female vocals. Bands like Low, Pixies, and even The XX’s first album inspired this idea of capturing both mine and Holly’s voices on songs with neither of us particularly taking the lead; in a way, the listener is invited to listen to the song however they want; they can focus on either of us with equal clarity.

It’s always the funniest part for me; it still feels very exciting to get in a van and hit the road. It’s quite a romantic idea, what I always dreamt of. If I’m ever having a bad time on the road, I think to myself, “What would your 16-year-old self say? Stop moaning! You’re living the dream!” I’m really excited to play Madrid; I have family there and spent many family holidays there as a kid. I also lived in Berlin for a bit, and my brother still lives there, so it’s always nice to return there.

I just hope we’re doing something interesting. I’ve always wanted to make music that I’ll hopefully be proud of in years to come. There was definitely a time when we could’ve felt pressured to go down the jazz route, but that’s never really been us. I always say “Jazz in mentality, not musicality." It's always about freedom—freedom to express ourselves and to not feel like we owe anyone anything—that day may come. But at the moment I’m very thankful that our fans almost expect us to do something different from album to album—long may it last.

I definitely prefer making music to talking about making music, ha! Jokes aside, it’s all about connection and creating deep bonds with each other through the writing process. Working with Ali on this album was amazing, and we became really close, meeting people on the road and building relationships with fans, promoters, and venues, and then seeing the music connect with different people in different ways. As a music lover, it’s bonkers to me to think that someone might have a similar experience with something we’ve written—that’s truly special and comes back to the idea of imagining what my teenage self would’ve said. Make the most of it, I guess.

I’m writing a lot. I’m feeling really inspired at the moment to make more music, and I’ve just moved into a new studio. It’s also a great distraction as the critics line up. We’ll be touring the album for the next year or so, so that’s the real focus—developing it as we go. As they say, you should always record an album after you’ve toured it for a year, so it’ll probably sound great twelve months from now! Ishmael stuff aside, our label, Severn Songs, is going from strength to strength. We’ve got some really exciting projects lined up that we can’t wait to share. More on that soon!