After playing with the band on their first tours of the US and Europe, Simon Rowe and organ/piano player Alan Forrester had joined the group full-time for the next record, essentially turning Mojave 3 into Mojave 5. Not only that, but the four men in the band also moved into a farmhouse in Cornwall, building a small studio in a cowshed where they demoed songs for what became Out of Tune.
“It was a real communal experience living on this village farm with Ian, Alan, and Simon, and a few other friends,” says Neil. “It was our own little Big Pink.”
“That was a real Band-y sort of atmosphere,” agrees Ian, “very old school, with everyone learning their parts and playing at the same time. Our sound became bigger, more raucous and poppy, as a result.”
“I was living in London and coming down to stay for a few weeks at a time,” says Rachel. “We were young and just really having fun with it.”
Based on his work on Belle and Sebastian’s If You're Feeling Sinister, the band hired producer Tony Doogan and decamped to Cava Studios in Glasgow to properly record Out of Tune, which turned into a long process of remixing, rerecording, and adding new elements like pedal steel and brass. While the procedure was laboured, the highly polished result is a bright, largely upbeat record that showcases a new sophistication in Neil’s lyrics while sounding much more like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Gram Parsons than anything resembling Slowdive.
