SHADOWS
MERGE/PEMA, 2010
Not as immediate as some of their LPs, but this overlooked eighth record is a moody gem
LOVE: It’s quite a soft record, but it’s definitely more focused and more optimistic than Man-Made. With the recording process again, we tried to remove ourselves. We did this in late summer/early autumn, which is a lovely time in Britain.
BLAKE: Leeders Farm is Dan from The Darkness’s studio. He’s a fan of Teenage Fanclub and we got to know The Darkness, so we ended up working at Dan’s place, a great little studio in a lovely part of the world. Then the last overdubs were done at Raymond’s.
McGINLEY: I think I spent a lot of time on Shadows and Man-Made just sitting and recording stuff and tweaking it; I feel a certain amount of personal responsibility for the sound.
BLAKE: This might be our least known record in some ways, and maybe it was our lowest ebb in terms of our being in the public eye.
MACDONALD: The way we record now, we’re all set up, so we can see each other. We’ve rehearsed before we go into the studio, we’ve got the structures and the keys and the tempos. We get a live sound as a band and record. They might then revisit a couple of things, or they might keep the basic backing track.
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HERE
2016
Energised in the South of France, TFC turn out their best record in years
BLAKE: We were looking for interesting places to go, and Raymond was scouring the internet, googling studios left, right and centre. We liked the old EMI desk [at Vega Studio, near Carpentras, Provence], it was in the South of France and it was pretty cheap as well – sadly, a lot of residential studios have had to lower their prices because no-one uses them. Then we went to Hamburg – I think the desk we mixed that record on was the Neve that Double Fantasy was mixed on.
McGINLEY: We’d set up with the five of us for most things – maybe one person might drop out if they weren’t sure what to do with the second guitar, and figure out what to do later.
MACDONALD: We’ll record songs when the lyrics aren’t written yet – they know in their head what the song’s like, but it’s only after it’s finished and mixed that I know what the song’s about!
BLAKE: We’re really happy with the way Here was received, and people seemed to enjoy the shows. All we have to do is make another one! None of us want to wait five years before the next record, or we’ll be picking up our pensions!
McGINLEY: When Here came out, there seemed to be a received wisdom that people wanted to like it. It feels good to say we’re still alive, that people still respond to what we do now, not like people are wincing, waiting for us to do old songs.