As they release their sixth studio album, ‘The Take Off and Landing of Everything’, it is fair to say that elbow are in a rare position within the music world. Few bands can lay claim to a career that encompasses over twenty years, even fewer can make that claim without changes to personnel and yet, elbow in 2014 are the same as elbow in 1992, Guy Garvey on vocals, Mark Potter on guitar, Pete Turner on bass, Craig Potter on keyboards and Richard Jupp on drums.
That isn’t to suggest elbow are rigid in their musical approach. For ‘The Take Off and Landing of Everything’ the band subtly changed their previous working practices to great effect. Where previously the vast majority of elbow songs had been the creation of the band in total, a sketch from one member being developed by the band in rehearsal, this time around a conscious decision was made to try a new approach. So, ‘Honey Sun’ is the musical creation of Mark Potter, ‘Colour Fields’ was mostly written by Pete Turner using iPad apps and ‘Fly Boy Blue / Lunette’, the track that unveiled the new album with its accompanying film in January, was initially created by a core group of Pete Turner, Mark Potter and Richard Jupp.
Some things remain the same though. As with previous albums, the UK million seller ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ (2008) and its platinum follow-up ‘build a rocket boys!’ (2011), the band began the writing process on tour and then on to Peter Gabriel’s Real World in Wiltshire for recording before returning to their studio base at Blueprint Studios for further recording and mixing. Production duties are once again with keyboardist Craig Potter and Blueprint continues to serve as the elbow artistic hub with creative associates The Soup Collective filming the process and the wider elbow family, including their tour manager and live sound engineer Danny Evans, whose involvement Guy describes as the ‘one other factor that makes this record different’, in place around the recording process. The wider cast includes the Hallé Orchestra (‘Manchester’s oldest band’ as Guy affectionately calls them) with Pete McPhail, Tim Barber, Bob Marsh and Kat Curlett adding brass to selected tracks and long term friend Jimi Goodwin of Doves adding backing vocals on the single ‘New York Morning’ a signifier of another major influence on the album.