The ethereal sounds of Glissando come courtesy of Richard Knox and Elly May Irving, whose new album ‘With Our Arms Wide Open We March Towards The Burning Sea’ is released on Gizeh Records, also run by Knox, on 23rd June. Helen Newbery caught up with Knox to talk tours, trains, and, of course, the new album.
AS: So you travelled by train on your recent tour, why did you do things this way?
RK: It was basically to save money; I’d probably rather go by van, but it was difficult to find someone to drive us, and then we’d have to pay them.
AS: So there wasn’t some sort of romantic notion to travelling around on the train?
RK: I think the idea of it is nice, but the reality isn’t always so romantic! Trains get cancelled and so on. It was good fun, but it’s always hard when there’s just the two of you and we’ve had to re-write some of the parts because we can’t take all our gear on the train. We re-wrote the guitar parts I normally bow on, and we can’t really do the intricate bits and pieces.
AS: I was listening to the album on the train up, actually, and it struck me that it is very filmic ‘“ have you ever thought of doing any film sound tracks, or been approached to do any?
RK: There was an independent Canadian director who was interested in an instrumental version of ‘Floods’; but hopefully once the album is out it will open more doors. It’s certainly something we’re capable of doing, and Elly is into this as well.
AS: Can you tell me a bit about the dynamics between the two of you?
RK: It comes pretty naturally, actually. I do the ambient side and Elly does the melody side of things. The two together leads to something picturesque and beautiful. Our reputation seems to travel before us as well; people seem to want to like us before hearing us, which is quite nice.
AS: So do you have a ready-made fan-base then?
RK: Not really, although people out there seem to like what we’re doing. We try to play with the right kinds of bands and get ourselves out there that way; people tend to associate you with the bands you’ve played with.
AS: How did the album take shape?
AS: Has being based in Leeds been helpful then?
AS: Where did you record it?
RK: We recorded the piano and vocals and some of the guitar in Leicester, and the rest was done in Leeds. I’ve got a studio in the basement, and we recorded the rest down there, to keep the costs down. I produced and mixed the album, and a friend mastered it. The concept [for the album] has been around for about a year, and in January we both sat down to record the album, and did it in about a month.
AS: This sounds like a surprisingly short time?
RK: Well, parts of it wrote itself; the songs themselves are quite basic arrangements, and we could give other people the melody to get hold of straight away for each song. Elly did the vocals, melody and piano.
AS: It sounds as if the process was quite organic?
RK: Well, we know each other so well that it comes easily. By the same token, however, we need to be careful that we don’t get complacent, we really want to push it. Elly has a natural ear for melody and can pull something beautiful out of the bag, she’ll come out with a beautiful piano part which will push the song in a totally new direction.
AS: The artwork is stunning as well.
RK: I’m a control freak, ha ha! We’re very much our own band with our own vision, and we take this all the way through from the concept to the artwork. We immerse ourselves totally in what we’re doing. Previously, we did all the artwork and packaging ourselves, and it takes forever. This time, we knew we wanted something really special, so we just googled the title, and one of the results was this flickr site with these amazing photos. Straight away we just said ‘this is what we want, it’s perfect’, and we’ve gone from there. I’m a sucker for vinyl as well, and I’m always into interesting packaging.
AS: So, what’s next for Glissando?
RK: Well, the album is about to come out, and we’ll be touring again with Calla in July.
AS: And do you have any plans beyond that?
RK: Well, we’ve got a couple of things written. The best thing we’ve written is actually not on the current album. We wanted a starting point for our next album, so we’ve saved it for the next album.
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