Juliet: “Let’s take some measurements, and then we can go whenever”

Lonesome guitar, a disembodied voice and an assortment of seriously ominous sounds…

Is this how it all begins?

‘Flatpack Intro’ fell together before anything else on this record, so I think it’s only fitting that it opens the album and gets our adventure started. I really love the tone it sets, the way it builds to a crescendo and the fact it leaves you wanting more… You’ll get more, I promise!

The track is built around a voicenote I recorded just after moving in with my girlfriend for the first time. You can hear her speaking to me in the background – we were about to take our first trip to Ikea! Little did I know, absentmindedly picking out a new melody, that this handful of notes would go on to form such an important part of what I built over the next two years.

To be honest, I was a bit scared of Ikea – I’d never been there before, nor lived away from home. Juliet and I were embarking on the adventure of a lifetime – one of many.

Oh, and for the record Ikea was indeed a weird place. I didn’t go back for quite some time...

Later on I dumped the voicenote onto my laptop, chopped it into a loop and started adding other sounds around it. These seemed to naturally capture the uncertainty and apprehension I’d been feeling, but having Juliet’s voice in there anchored it as something really exciting and beautiful.

I think my favourite sound in the mix is a software instrument called ‘Space Harpsichord’ – the jangly thing that comes in towards the end. A harpsichord is basically a kind of medieval keyboard, so I like the idea of an outer space version!