Mojave 3 - Out Of Tune

After playing with the band on their first tours of the US and Europe, Simon Rowe and organ/piano player Alan Forrester had joined the group full-time for the next record, essentially turning Mojave 3 into Mojave 5.

Not only that, but the four men in the band also moved into a farmhouse in Cornwall, building a small studio in a cowshed where they demoed songs for what became Out of Tune.

“It was a real communal experience living on this village farm with Ian, Alan, and Simon, and a few other friends,” says Neil. “It was our own little Big Pink.”

“That was a real Band-y sort of atmosphere,” agrees Ian, “very old school, with everyone learning their parts and playing at the same time. Our sound became bigger, more raucous and poppy, as a result.”

“I was living in London and coming down to stay for a few weeks at a time,” says Rachel. “We were young and just really having fun with it.”

Based on his work on Belle & Sebastian’s If You're Feeling Sinister, the band hired producer Tony Doogan and decamped to Cava Studios in Glasgow to properly record Out of Tune, which turned into a long process of remixing, rerecording, and adding new elements like pedal steel and brass.

While the procedure was laboured, the highly polished result is a bright, largely upbeat record that showcases a new sophistication in Neil’s lyrics while sounding much more like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Gram Parsons than anything resembling Slowdive.