Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
So said John Lennon once and that quote could well sum up the past five years for Broken Records since the release of their fourth album.
Writing sessions for its follow-up began in 2019, yet The Dreamless Sleep Of The 1990s only came out at the beginning of this month.
For long-term fans of the Edinburgh outfit that formed in 2006, this is welcome news – the new album features all the group’s strong points, especially their soaring melodies backing frontman Jamie Sutherland’s rich baritone.
Dreamless is, though, more restrained than earlier releases, with extra space between individual instruments and vocals.
Partly, this came from a desire to progress from the rousing ride of 2018’s What We Might Know, Jamie explains from his Edinburgh home.
“We’d made a big party record, relatively for us, inspired by Springsteen and Tom Petty, what I used to listen in the back seat of my parents’ car,” says the father of two.
“But now I was in the driving seat and my kids were in the back. We realised things had come full circle.
“We wanted to move on from that and make something quieter, more reflective; really refine the arrangements, so there weren’t hundreds of things in the mix, just one line for each instrument.”
‘I hate to think what we’d be like if none of us had kids’
Dreamless was supposed to come out in 2020, but the pandemic put a spanner in the works, Jamie explains.
“Covid hit and gave us time to rework and refine the album,” he says.
“And because everyone was bringing their records out so quickly after the pandemic, it made no sense to do the same and be completely ignored.”
Having spent several years on revered indie label 4AD, the six-piece now self-release their music and hold down other jobs: guitarist Craig Ross owns The Depot Studio, still the band’s rehearsal space, while Jamie, previously music programmer for Edinburgh’s Summerhall, has recently been appointed creative director of Skye’s performing arts organisation Seall.
Jamie himself first became a dad in 2016, the last bandmember to become a parent, a life change that he believes has been positive for the group.
“It impacts on things like touring, but I think we’re in a much healthier place having kids,” he laughs. “I hate to think what we’d be like if none of us had them. It would be a different kettle of fish going away.”
Dreamless’s title track is inspired by fever dreams Jamie endured during Covid, comparing them to his own relatively carefree childhood as he worries about the new generation.
“We recognise our music is a legacy to our kids. Not in a financial way, but they’ve all grown up together and this is a document of our lives,” he explains.
“I recognise the person singing those songs from past albums, though now I’m a complete different person.”
Broken Records ‘never sounded better live’
Jamie also muses that as people start families, they are often dealing with mortality, something that also affected the making of Dreamless, he admits. Indeed, the singer lost a former flatmate to a heart attack.
“In the music industry, we’ve had friends and peers and colleagues that have passed far too early and that all bleeds into it. It’s that period when you get your first kids and your first passings. It just seems to collide like that, a curious time of life.”
Jamie, though, sees Broken Records as a band that is moving forward rather than looking backwards, especially enjoying how new material works well on tour with earlier, more rocking anthems.
“The band’s never sounded better live,” he says. “Like on the record, we’ve found that space in the arrangements we’re playing with each other. There’s less competition for noise on stage.
“I certainly feel I’m improving as a songwriter. I know more, have more experience and that adds weight. I believe we still haven’t made our best record.
“It’s good to be chasing something and that keeps us going.”
The Dreamless Sleep Of The 1990s is out now. Broken Records were due to play Beat Generator, Dundee, on October 26, but this show has been cancelled by the band since publication. Other dates include Aberdeen on October 27 and Stirling on October 28.
