James Ford

So Prelude to Ecstasy was released on the 2nd of February 2024 by Island Records.

It was produced by James Ford.

A press release called the concept of ecstasy a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain and one that binds the album together.

The band also stated that they laid bare confessions directly from diary pages and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life.

But I do feel like a little like they're shortchanging themselves a little bit when it comes to the studio, because like writing, I just think they need to like devote more time and spend a bit more time exploring.

And I also I also think that James Ford has a lot to fucking answer for here because he's not pushing the band.

He's not pushing them.

a producer should push the band we hear the stuff that he's made with the Arctic Monkeys it's great some of the stuff some of the best over their career and some of the other things he's done is absolutely amazing across his discography please check it out like the albums in there are just some of them are world beating albums like all time classics but this is not and I think the blame lies at the feet of Green not pushing himself I think it lies at James Ford the producer not pushing the band or certainly not pushing green.

And I think that that is what makes it a three out of five record.

And I think that like Tom Cole and is it Diego who's on base? It is.

Exactly.

I don't

That carries on today, you know, different albums.

They do demos, I work on them, make them sound better than they can, and then send them off to who they're going to work with, you know, James Ford or Stuart Price or, you know, whoever.

And that bit where you make them, where you...

Add your magic, Pete, and improve them.

Thematically, the chamber offers both escapism and entrapment.

James Ford production gives the songs room to expand, yet the enormous space never feels quite safe.

Dopamine Chamber reaches for stadium rock grandeur, but in the most Fontaine's move possible, they still fill that enormous space with dread and doom.

The scale is almost apocalyptic, even threatening.

Their song Starburst I thought was absolutely phenomenal.

I could see them going to a new level with their producer, James Ford.

This record consolidates, in my opinion, the ambition that they have, the drive they have and the ability that they have.

It's not necessarily that it's a huge leap forward from romance, but it is the record that, as I see it, will bring them confidently to this new level of their careers where they play Slain Castle and where they are likely to sell out all around the globe as they tour.

They got Ann Dudley to arrange the orchestra.

It's James Ford on production, and they did use those same backing singers from the Piano Room performance as well.

Neil does tend to stick closely to those original lyrics, but everybody's got the right to choose.

I reckon that's definitely a Neil addition, and that does build on Bowie's famous topic of gender confusion as well.

Now, I mentioned the demos, Graeme.

I would encourage anyone that hasn't listened to the nonetheless demos, the ones that are on the expanded version that you mentioned, to check them out.

I'm not saying they sound better than the finished James Ford productions,

but...

This is where I get a little bit in, yeah.

So that was James Ford, who Blur, Gorillaz, and then also worked on the band part two of Black Country New Roads.

Oh, okay.

Very good.

[laughs]

I, I wanted to ask you about the process because I know that the band created the tracks, and then you and James, uh, worked together.

Yeah.

How did that work? And we've been talking a lot about kind of heady things and these big themes.

But, you know, just trying to get into that head space musically speaking.

Yeah.

And then he went off to Sicily with the producer that we worked with, James Ford.

Mm.