Think Tank (Blur Album) - Recording History

Recording History

Recording sessions for Think Tank started in November 2001 at Albarn's 13 Studio in London. Albarn, James and Rowntree had come to the studio along with Ben Hillier, who explained that "there was tension to begin with. Alex had made some belittling comment about Gorillaz in the press, but there was a 'fuck you' and a 'fuck you' and it was all mates again but for the fact that Graham was missing." During 2001, Coxon had been battling alcoholism and depression, however he had failed to tell his bandmates that he could not turn up to the initial session. Despite Coxons absence, the rest of the band decided to start recording without him.

By January 2002, the rest of the band were mainly recording demos that Albarn had started on a four-track and subsequently transferred into Logic with 13's in-house engineers Tom Girling, Jason Cox and assistant, James Dring. Hillier revealed that "I don't usually work with an engineer, I usually do it all myself, so it was nice — especially nice to have Jason. He's an awful lot more than an engineer, he's worked with the band for years, he knows 13 and the band's equipment inside out. By the end of the four weeks we had 17 songs — quite an astonishing work-rate considering that the band won't work past 6pm when they're in London." Think Tanks fourth track, "On The Way To The Club", in Albarn's words, "changed dramatically" from the original demo. "Only, myself and ", revealed Albarn. "I was just sort of playing around and they were doing something else and the tune came out and the bit of the lyric, so I just went ‘can you put a drum beat down really quickly’. So they put down these mad kind of fractious things down and we built it up from there."

Coxon rejoined the rest of the band for recording sessions in February and May 2002, with the foreknowledge that it would be "tense in the studio." Coxon spent, what he described as "awkward afternoons", contributing on the tracks, "Battery in Your Leg", "The Outsider", "Morricone", and "Some Glad Morning." Of his contributions during these sessions, only "Battery in Your Leg" ended up on the final album. The rest of the band reportedly, found problems with Coxon's "attitude" during these sessions, with Coxon himself admitting that he was "probably a little crackers, still. And very energetic". Eventually, Blur's manager, Chris Morrison, asked Coxon to leave on behalf of the rest of the band. The remaining members of Blur decided to carry on recording, Albarn stating that "the spirit of Blur was more important than the individuals."

In June, the band went back into the studio, doing "tracking, overdubs and reworking what we'd already done, and all the time new songs would be popping up — I think we had 28 of them at one point." Even by July, the recordings were "scatty" and "thrown together." Albarn desired to have multiple producers involved in the album, wanting to get a 'name producer' involved. Albarn had previously been in talks with Norman Cook (commonly known as Fatboy Slim) to be involved on the record, although he originally wanted to contribute "just feedback and nothing else." Albarn eventually invited him into 13 to try and work with the band, although Cook, contrary to rumours, had never signed on to produce the whole album as his solo career was taking up most of his time. Hillier and the band also spent time working with other producers, including The Dust Brothers who according to Hillier, "did good work but they probably came in a bit early in the process. I don't think we ended up using any of the things they did in the end, but that wasn't a reflection on them at all. It was more a question of them turning up at a point when we weren't quite sure what we were doing, and if anything they showed us that we needed to do a bit more work on the writing." The Neptunes were also reported to be involved at one point.

In August, the remaining members of Blur, along with Hillier, travelled to Morocco. James released a statement on the bands website saying "I suppose the idea at the bottom of this is to escape from whatever ghetto we’re in and free ourselves by going somewhere new and exciting." The band settled at Marakesh where they equipped an old barn with a studio. "Damon had been out there to a music festival one weekend and was really excited by it", revealed Hillier. "The musical life in Marrakesh is amazing. Live music is everywhere. It's a very important part of the culture, in a more direct way than it is over here. Here it's all strictly disseminated via radio and records, and DJs and bands. Over there live music can happen anywhere, and usually does. And they'll write songs about current situations all the time and not think twice about it. It's the sort of living folk tradition that we used to have here, and probably still do somewhere."

Albarn claimed that most of the albums lyrics were written "under a cypress tree in Morocco." The sessions in Marakesh produced "Crazy Beat", "Gene by Gene", and "Moroccan Peoples Revolutionary Bowls Club". All of the vocal sessions took place at this time, Albarn revealing that “All of the vocals were sung outside It was nice. When it’s nice weather, it’s nice to be outside. I think the big studios are a con. They charge people to make less exciting records. That doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, recording as it is now, you don’t need studios. You can do it on whatever you want, whenever you want. That’s a great liberation that computers and technology have given us. It basically means that it’s just going back to where it comes from, which is music on the streets and in the houses.”

Whilst in Morocco, Albarn wrote a song about Cook and his partner, Zoe Ball who were having troubles with their relationship. The song started out as a jam session, eventually evolving into "Put It Back Together" which ended up on Fatboy Slim's fourth studio album, Palookaville, which was released in October 2004. Albarn described the sessions as " things together that didn’t work. We made a lot of mistakes but the ones that we thought worked we kept and put on the album. There’s still a few that I’d like to have seen on the record, but it would have turned into a different record. Cause a lot of the other stuff was probably a bit rawer but still really interesting. The record may have been a double album and you’d have had the laid back side and the more kind of fractious, difficult side and I think what we wanted was to find the balance between those two.”

After the band came back from Morocco, the remaining sessions took place in a barn on National Trust land in Devon. William Orbit, who was the main producer on 13 was also involved in the albums production, with Hillier stating that "we sent a couple of tunes to William to work on in his studio, working round the clock in a computer environment the way he does. He's a nutter and works all night. That was quite an interesting juxtaposition, us doing office hours then going to see William after work, just as he was getting up!" Of Orbits productions, "Sweet Song" ended up on the album. Coxon's absence also bolstered the role of Alex James and Dave Rowntree who provided backing vocals throughout the album. Rowntree also played the electric guitar on "On the Way to the Club" and provided a rap on a demo version of "Sweet Song". A Moroccan orchestra is featured in the lead single, "Out of Time".