New Shapes Of Life

Martin Carr on New Shapes Of Life: "New Shapes Of Life is the third album I've made under my own name and my second for Tapete Records. I had spent much of 2015 in my studio trying to write songs for pop stars, getting nowhere and feeling useless, when David Bowie died. I abandoned my writing and immersed myself in his records, films and biographies. I did nothing else for weeks.... I started completely from scratch, writing and recording, often at the same time, in my home studio in Cardiff.... Lyrics were written first, unusual for me, but because they were the driving force of the songs, they had to be right. I concentrated on what I wanted to say rather than trying to find rhymes and scansion.... There was no sonic template in mind, though I was listening to a lot of soul music - Philly, Northern, Motown - along with the Bowie stuff. I wanted to change the way I sang, I didn't really want to play anything, most of the music is stuff I sampled and fucked with and then played it back in on a keyboard.... I worked on ten songs but in the end, only finished eight before the spell was broken.... I became paranoid and anxious. I was talking to myself and waving my arms around until I finally broke down and told my family and called the doctor.... I tried going back to it but I could never find the same space. I then spent six months looking for someone to mix it. In the winter of 2017 I recorded a new single, 'Gold Lift,' inspired by the photograph of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage taken the day after the U.S. presidential election. I asked Greg Haver, a Cardiff producer and friend now living in New Zealand, to help me with the mix for that. He tidied it up, replaced my electronic drums with his own playing, and then sent it back over for Clint Murphy - a New Zealander now living in the U.K. - to do a proper mix. This worked out so well that I decided to follow the same process for New Shapes Of Life."