There’s been talk for a while now about albums being dead. Talk like that is nonsense anyway, so I’m not about to write another post decrying or supporting simplistic rubbish.

What I will say is that this has been a pretty album-happy few weeks for me. I got Beyoncé‘s Lemonade and Radiohead‘s A Moon Shaped Pool as well as pre-ordering Foy Vance‘s Wild Swan (which drops tomorrow – huzzah!) and Switchfoot‘s Where The Light Shines Through.

I’m not going to get into reviewing on here. I don’t think. But I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve heard so far.

That said, for musicians without large followings there does seem to be less incentive to put all of that time and energy into making something as cohesive as an album. Certainly it makes more sense for me to do what I’m doing in releasing singles on a roughly regular schedule (on that note, Somewhere in between is currently with the mastering guy). This keeps me, and hopefully you, more interested and is a hell of a lot less work.

We did the album thing last year, and it took roughly 850 working hours last year to get the thing finished. And that doesn’t include physical production, launch planning, marketing or the launch itself. It was totally worth it, and we have a finished product which I don’t think is on the level of international acclaim, but which we’re really proud of and very happy with.

But it was a lot of work and a lot of waiting. And there was nothing to keep the public momentum going in between. In terms of momentum for us, that took a lot of sheer willpower and planning.

So here we are. And because it’s been a year (ish) since we went into the studio to record The Way Home, I will be posting some more about the process in the coming weeks. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the insight as much as we enjoyed making it.