Where are you currently based?
Enmore, NSW, Australia. Which shares the same postcode as Newtown. Why do they make suburbs share postcodes sometimes? The lesser of the two always knows who they are and carry around an inferiority complex for the entire existence. I’m going to print some t-shirts that say Free Enmore and see where that gets us.
What’s been happening recently?
Mostly it’s work and recalibrating to a new normal after lockdowns and the restrictions that impacted how we work. Anything related to music falls just a little outside of that so even though it’s ‘work’ I’m writing these answers at 6:12 am so that I can get to work on time!
You have an album on the way, what influenced the sound and songwriting?
The sound wasn’t directly influenced by anyone or anything but it’s nothing new insofar as it’s an album driven primarily by simple acoustic guitar. The sound is a little different to works we’ve previously produced because the four track tape machine was front and center on every song. The songwriting itself all came about in a couple of weeks in December 2020 during a particularly dull lockdown period.
How did you go about writing this album?
Songs that are easy to write are the most fun to write and also the easiest to finish. You seem to open a channel for truth (or at least relative truth) and it pours out of you. To keep with the water analogy, I’m still unsure how you control or if you even have any control of how open the tap is. These songs were easy to write and easy to finish and so hopefully honest and resonant.
What does this forthcoming album mean to you?
Every song on the record is a person’s name and someone that is known quite well to us. Al, Lucy, Helen, Dan, Tam, Sid, Eddie, Katherine, Mac and Nadia. There’s a couple of less common names there but it’s interesting to point out that almost everyone has an Al or a Lucy or a Dan in their lives. They started as songs specific about the people but then grew and blossomed into archetypal concepts that we hope people can relate to and enjoy.
Where and when did you record/produce/master and who did you work with?
The songs were all recorded at Enmore Audio during 2022. Because of the concept that we wanted everything to be tracked to cassette it was useful having Owen Pengliss here as recording engineer; he loves analog gear and was more than up for the challenge. Noah Church played quite a few of the electric guitars and whenever there’s drums that’s most likely Owen. We mixed the album as a team over several months and also mastered the tracks at Enmore Audio.
What programs/equipment did you use?
A couple of our favorite mics were across pretty much everything. A Neumann M147 and an AKG c414 were up and ready to go at every tracking session. They went through one of either of our UA6167 channel strips and then straight into our four track Tascam. Those takes were then bounced and lined up in Pro Tools for mixing.
Your sound has moved in a new direction, what prompted this?
It’s more of a concept sound inspired by the limitations of lockdown and something we just wanted to explore for a very long time. We’ll almost certainly go back to the production style found on Another 69 Love Songs Part 1. After all, we’ve committed ourselves to producing part 2 and 3 at some point! Of course if the world absolutely loves
Who are you listening to at the moment?
Destroyer’s new album Labyrinthitis. Which after typing out for the first time I realise is a real word and after a quick Google search realise it’s a condition of the ear! I hope that doesn’t mean our good friend Destroyer has Labyrinthitis?! Anyway, an album well worth checking out.
What’s planned for 2022?
Music wise, Circle has been collaborating with quite a few artists and we’re in two minds as to whether or not it’s okay to release some of these tunes while we’re in an album cycle. It can quite often be a two year cycle between writing a track and having the material out there in the world so tossing up the notion of a new paradigm where it’s totally okay to drop singles left and right regardless of the album cycle you might find yourself in.