The following is a barely edited dump of thoughts that I threw at my press agent when asked me to say some words about the album, to help them to write a press release for it. They sent over a few simple questions as prompts.
Q: Inspirations for the album… Musical:
I was listening to a lot of that 70s organic spacey sound, like David Axelrod “The Human Abstract”, "Le Planet Savage" soundtrack, Aphrodite's Child, records that were loosely a sci fi concept but really groove based. Kind of a hippie sci fi. A lot of the more overtly spacey but earthy records from that period too, Tangerine Dream, Emerald Web, Vangelis' more mellow smokey rhodes keyboard jams. The drumless parts of Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack especially, that over the top, slightly comic, yearning, mysterious sound. But just as much I listened to a ton of super modern R&B songs, like The Weeknd and Rae Sremmurd's more starry eyed tracks, and Frank Ocean and Solange's amazing song writing, especially how intimate and tender their records feel. The melodies and feel of some indie rock like Cocteau Twins and Grouper, for the same reasons. YMO's synth pop too, the brightness, layers and bounce of it, some Fatima Yamaha tracks had a big impact too similarly.