So, eight weeks or so had passed since those initial demo recordings in Colne and an array of issues had been raised and resolved. Most importantly, after living with the new songs for a while it was felt unanimously that they were worthy of being much more than a basic, stripped back affair. It was decided to look at the new album and how (and where) it would be recorded. It had long been touted amongst the band members that the producer of choice would be Dave Allen, who fettled the sonorous output of much of the alternative eighties [The Cure, The Chameleons, Depeche Mode, Altered Images etc.]. It was perhaps with these records in mind that the band started to feel how the new record might sound.
Initial correspondence was moving apace when we realised that we were talking to Dave Allen, ex-bassist from The Gang of Four, in short, the wrong Dave Allen. Still, we eventually tracked down our man and all the small talk was settled and a date to record in London was set for early July.
With that in mind, Decoration met up again in late June to thrash out some more new songs that had been floating around as ideas. The plan was to have arrangements etc. all settled by the time the band would converge on London to start work on the new album in earnest. The band descended on the decommissioned old folks home just off the A666 and set about knocking songs into shape.
First to be tackled was 'Silent Kisses for Quiet Goodbyes', which over the course of the morning developed from a rough demo to a melodically rolling pop song already thought of as a strong contender for an early single. Following on, a track provisionally titled 'Stuffy' took a nosedive and was proving difficult to progress with, it was put to one side and the three tracks recorded in April [Misty's, Kay's, and This Kills] were fine tuned. More run throughs and tweaking saw off Sunday morning, and then to work on 'Clanger' [probably to be called 'Poster Boy' by the time you read this]. A darker tune, washed over with emotion and discord; and then a return to 'Stuffy' which given the break came together perfectly. It's more of a driven, pounding march than the other tracks and therefore stands out from the crowd, it's a real treat. It seems that there is no entrenched aural theme developing with this set of songs like there was with the effervescing pop of Don't Disappoint Me Now, or the angry melancholia of See You After The War. These songs seem to be coming together as a composite of all that Decoration are good at - ups and downs, highs and lows, the ebb and flow of the everyday events that go together to make up an album...it's all there if we look hard enough.
