“I was bound up in a transatlantic love affair,” he says. “I got to spend a lot of time in America and I blew all of my money, and when I was in California, I had a guitar there. I spent a lot of time perfecting my parts and the stretches of the songs, and then on the plane rides I did a lot of writing. I go through stages of sobriety and intense non-sobriety, and early last year, I was very much not-drinking, do-nothing, and I spent a lot of time sat in my room at night. I was just yearning for going out and having fun with friends and stuff, but I was also being very regimented and wanting to stay in and not spend money and save up to go to America. It was just by the nature of the record happening over that period and it obviously seeps in. I tried to make the record not about that experience too much, apart from the last song, which just had to be on this record.”
“Lost (And Found)” resigns the album in a maelstrom of unguarded confession, Scarisbrick’s vocals roughening towards a nervous breakdown as plucked guitars give way to thunderous, frantic drum clashes. The lyrics were written thousands of feet above the Atlantic, sitting beside a Canadian woman who had requested Scarisbrick wake her if the Northern Lights appeared. When they did – and the most “pristine, amazing, gorgeous” ones at that – he forgot to wake her, then lied that they hadn’t appeared. After the pilot announced, upon landing, that it was the best display he’d seen in 25 years of flying, the woman, who had noticed Scarisbrick’s writing on his tray table, peered over his shoulder, gestured at his lyrics, and said, “There is something severely wrong with you.”
Listen closely and you can hear Hancock and Scarisbrick crying as the seven-and-a-half minute track draws to a close, both the final notes of and a testament to its creation. “It really was just three close friends in a room pressing record. Of course we’re going to be giggling or crying or being incredibly earnest with each other. And I guess with a lot of records – even with The Orchestra – those imperfections could be considered blemishes. But I wanted to make sure they existed because it felt really honest. And at the end of ‘Lost (and Found)’ we were crying, but in a few of the other songs you can hear us laughing. Recording was a very free space to react as you wanted to.”
The record was made over three days, with 14 songs recorded and four left behind – alongside a 200-year old antique table that Scarisbrick jumped on in pure elation and accidentally destroyed when the sessions wrapped up (“nearly died”). Save for the odd overdub and redo, the performances were left untouched, the liveliness of the room preserved. “The classic thing on this record is that the choruses have double-track guitars, and that’s it. It’s literally just two guitars on each chorus, normally, and there’s a cowbell at one point.”