Jane Weaver’s new album, Love In Constant Spectacle – out now via Fire Records – marks the first time she’s worked with a producer outside her immediate creative circle. It was helmed by John Parish, best known for his production work with PJ Harvey, folk-proggers This Is The Kit and singer-songwriter Aldous Harding.
“I’ve always wanted to work with John,” admits Weaver. “But I got in touch with him accidentally, saying, ‘I want to do a new album and get outside of Manchester and what’s Bristol like to work in? I’d jump at the chance to work with you.’
“And he said, ‘Well, actually, I’ve got a bit of a gap between now and when I start working with PJ Harvey.’ So that’s what we did. It was sort of like, ‘Right, let’s do this thing!’ It was like flying by the seat of your pants.”
Weaver says the move was largely based on her desire to explore new sonic territories. “I wanted somebody else to make some of the decisions. When you’re producing something in the studio, you’re essentially making all the decisions – maybe not all the technical ones, but certainly all the way things sound from beginning to end and how it sounds when you deliver it. It was really good having a different person saying, ‘I actually think it would sound better if it was like this.’”
She continues, “For the title track, I didn’t like the bass line and said we needed to do something on the synth. He played something on the ARP, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God! That sounds much better. It sounds how it should!’ It’s things like that – you’re trying to get somewhere and somebody else needs to make an experienced decision.”
She reports that Parish’s decision to record for two weeks at the celebrated Rockfield Studios in the Wye Valley, before moving to Bristol’s Invada Studios, helped bring out the best in her.
“It’s all about Dave Brock and Hawkwind!” she laughs as she recalls the Welsh studio. “It’s a very accessible and down-to-earth place and it’s very comfortable. It’s not intimidating. It was really cool and easy to work there.”
The resulting album finds Weaver playing more guitar than recently to create music that she describes as “heavy mellow,” while bringing down the pace in contrast to the more exuberant predecessor, Flock. “I wanted to do something different that was just a bit more emotional and sensitive,” she says.
