Lawrence Arabia's new album

  • Breaking
  • 06/07/2012

By Jenny Suo

Lawrence Arabia is promising a different sound from his last award-winning creation on his new album, The Sparrow.

“It’s darker and sort of melancholic and a bit melodramatic,” says James Milne, also known as Lawrence Arabia,

“I guess there was some subconscious stuff about approaching my thirties, or various existential crisis indulgent stuff that flowed into it.”

His rehearsal space isn’t ideal, but that doesn’t seem to bother Milne. Within the old run-down office resound the melodies of his new album, and the space isn’t too different from where his album was recorded in the UK.

In an old house just south of London, Milne and some good friends put the album together with very little rehearsal at all – and that's how they wanted it

“It had the by-product of making the recording a bit more spontaneous – where you just set up and we were already recording, and we recorded each song. They hadn’t even really heard the songs,” he says.

“People put a lot of pressure on themselves when they're all rehearsed and ready to go, and they know they know the stuff but they get up tight and they don’t want to take risks.”

And so The Sparrow was born – but not with out the help of Kim Dotcom, who is thanked in the liner notes.

“He was recording at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios and he was about to go in for a session so they cleaned up the studio waiting for him, and basically there was a little day where I was allowed to sneak in and use the desk for a couple of hours,” says Milne.

Milne is now preparing for his New Zealand performances, which he is describing as the biggest shows he's ever put on.

The first of those is in Christchurch next week.

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source: newshub archive