Hey Venus! - Recording

Recording

The majority of the album was recorded at Miraval Studios, France, picked, at keyboardist Cian Ciaran's request, because of its large live room which enabled all the band to set up and play as a group. The Super Furries wanted to "go somewhere new and have a cultural experience" while they recorded what is their eighth album together. Recording in France also enabled the band to get away from distractions such as "clean the house". Additional recording took place at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth while string instruments were recorded at Metropolis Studios, London.

After working with producer Mario Caldato Jr. on their previous albums, Phantom Power and Love Kraft, the band "were looking for someone new to work with" as they didn't want to repeat these records. They chose Dave Newfeld to produce Hey Venus!, after hearing his work with Canadian indie rock supergroup Broken Social Scene:

Rhys has praised Newfeld for his "knowledge of pop and what makes people react" stating that "most of the time he just stood there by the desk" and "wouldn't accept a take until he was physically moved by it".

As with Love Kraft Rhys was not the sole writer; guitarist Huw Bunford wrote "Battersea Odyssey" (inspired by Battersea Power Station), while keyboard player Cian Ciaran wrote "Carbon Dating". Other members of the band contributed songs that do not appear on Hey Venus! but might "end up on the next record". Newfeld also encouraged the group to improvise songs, two of which, "Semi Pro" and "Hot Nutz", appear briefly on footage of the recording process streamed at the band's website and included with American editions of the album. Rhys claimed these tracks (along with 32 other improvised songs recorded during the Hey Venus! sessions) would "probably never be released" but give "a glimpse into the magic of the Super Furry Animals in the studio, and the kind of atmosphere that Dave created". However, "Hot Nutz" was reworked as "Moped Eyes" for their next album, Dark Days/Light Years.

Some of the songs recorded barely resemble their earlier demo versions including "Baby Ate My Eightball", which originally "had this sort of Miami based rhythm with babies crying and glasses smashing" and was "very abrasive". The finished track (which features Huw Bunford "impersonating a police or ambulance siren with the backing vocals") was mixed three or four times and "barely resembles the original".

Hey Venus! reflected the group's desire to "capture the spirit of the band playing live in a room". The album was recorded "very quickly" and, as the band did not feel the need to "experiment so much with such a simple record", is not particularly "sonically adventurous". In Gruff Rhys's words Hey Venus! is "a straight up album of songs ... with key changes and a live band playing them" with more emphasis "on songs than the arrangement". According to Rhys "nobody brought samplers into the studio, so there's far less electronics than on a lot of our records ... a lot of electronic music is quite a solitary pursuit. You sit at your computer or sampler and sometimes it's more of an individual kind of thing. Whereas with this record, we were trying to play as a band: a five people at once kind of record."

Along with the bass, drums and guitar, several other instruments were used during recording including a dulcimer (for its "sixties spy movie sound"), an electric saz (on "Into the Night"), an "electric-sitar box" ("Like a drum machine for Indian musicians") and a harpsichord which, according to Guto Pryce, was used on a lot of songs "because it was there, and it was more in tune than the pianos". The latter had a strong influence on the album with Rhys stating: "when we found the harpsichord everything started to go 1960s... and we kind of followed that feeling..." Although Gruff Rhys had initially told fans to expect a "speaker-blowing" LP the addition of instruments such as the harpsichord meant this was not the case; the album instead highlights the band's "musical sweet tooth".

The band enlisted the help of several musicians when making the album including string arranger Sean O'Hagan (of The High Llamas), percussionist Kris Jenkins and others who the group have "built up relationships with over the years... the brass players we've toured with a lot ... Sean O'Hagan ... brought his string section in ... they've played on almost all our records".

Sixteen songs were recorded for the album with only 11 making the final cut. The band made a conscious decision to keep the number of tracks, and therefore the running time of Hey Venus!, down "because the last three albums have been almost an hour long". At just over 36 minutes, the album is the shortest full length release by the band. Some of the songs left off the record were "really heavy and raw" as a result of which Gruff Rhys feels Hey Venus! is "more consistent with our back catalogue". Both lead single "Show Your Hand" and "Suckers!" were originally cut from the album, for being "too generic" and too "obvious ... melodically" respectively, until the band were persuaded to reconsider. Rough Trade Records boss Geoff Travis told the group that "Show Your Hand" was his favourite song and, following the tracks reworking to include a French horn part, it was reinstated. Similarly "Suckers!" was "really pushed" by producer Dave Newfeld until it too took its place on Hey Venus!.

The album was mixed by Chris Shaw and the Super Furry Animals at Rockfield Studios and the band's own studio, Pleasurefoxxx, in Cardiff with Dave Newfeld performing additional mixing duties on "Suckers!" Mastering was undertaken by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York.

Rhys has claimed to be particularly pleased with "Into the Night" (which "was kind of where my head was at, which is quite a ridiculous place to be") and "Carbon Dating" ("probably the most beautiful song on the record") while Huw Bunford has described the album as "one of best records we've ever made".