"The hardest cut"
Elbow's Guy Garvey: "We don't phone each other for a chat. We don't talk about life outside the music until we're together. These hushed, night-time missives told us how each other were doing. When we finally got together, all that was to do was record the songs, honor them with amazing additional singers and players in a gorgeous space and catch up. It was beautiful... We realized we were making a record free of the usual creative guidelines. We love patient, quiet, whole albums... We've always written songs like this, but it felt natural to make an album that focuses on the gentler side of our music."
