Composed during a hospital stay, the Gorillaz, Pulp, and Fat Dog producer has put this constrained sobriety to work for a mesmerizing synth-pop.
James Ellis Ford still remembers the moment Alex Turner asked him to finalize the last track from his band (Opening Night), written for the charity compilation initiated by War Child. The producer would have had little reason to feel moved.
Longtime collaborators who ask him for a mix and send thank-you messages signed “take care” is routine, almost a trivial anecdote when everything is going well. But that day, it mattered. “I was in the midst of chemotherapy, and this album gave me something positive to focus on, something far bigger than myself.”
A computer, a synth, and a cheap microphone
For several months now, the man at the controls of the latest Gorillaz, Fat Dog, and Fontaines D.C. records has been battling a blood cancer and has spent a number of stints in hospital. It was there that he mixed the Arctic Monkeys’ track on his bed, using limited equipment: a computer, a synth, and a cheap microphone, just enough to coax the melodies whirling in his head into life alongside what he was recording.
“That’s what explains the direct, unadorned feel of these twelve songs. I didn’t want to move toward overly poetic formulas or craft grand orchestral melodies. Everything came out spontaneously, like a diary in which you write to feel better.”
Unlike The Hum (2023), recorded with eighteen different instruments and referencing Robert Wyatt’s oeuvre, Lost in Another World embraces the influence of Yellow Magic Orchestra while adopting a certain minimalism. A liberating gesture: “Being isolated in my hospital room and lacking access to my studio undeniably shaped my approach to creation. For the first time, there were no filters.”
Perhaps this is because the tragedy brings him closer to familiar themes, such as melancholy and the contemplation of mortality. Perhaps it is also because the Briton allows himself to be vulnerable for the first time without slipping into self-pity. In any case, this second album deftly sheds the loop-based structure (a hallmark of The Hum) to lean toward a pop form that remains synthetic and just as captivating when crafted this way, with minimal effects and maximum emotion.
Lost in Another World (Domino/Sony Music). Release on August 14.
