the minutes

 On the album’s title: “You get to my age and you understand ‘Oh brilliant times, they do happen, but they happen in these tiny moments that are hung in pedestrian years. Mostly our years are pedestrian, but we get these wonderful moments. And when you realise that, you feel like you can let the rubbish go.   For me, in making this album, being able to sit down and doing something creative with someone I was really into working with and who was into working with me – and it being purely for a creative reward – they were some of my minutes.” ~ Alison, RTE interview 2013

On the album itself: “For me, it’s a return to form. It’s probably my most cohesive album. It’s definitely a return to electronica, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – but without losing a musicality which can so easily happen in techno music that’s become more driven perhaps by DJs than musicians as it used to be in the early 80s. So it was about finding the right cohort and I did that with Guy Sigsworth who is my collaborator.

I knew I wanted to use an electronic palate. I like this it affords. I’ve got quite a ‘burr’ to my voice – it’s quite a woody sound – and you put that together with woody instruments and you lose the nuance and the texture of of it. The great thing about working with electronica, with much cleaner sounds, is that all the little flaws and ticks in the voice can be heard in a way you can’t with a traditional line-up.

I’m very much at that stage of my career where raising my star is completely irrelevant. The only thing I can hope to do is to make music that I am moved by. And so consequently I’m not interested in demographics or what is being sold or what is being played on the radio. The only thing I can control at this point in time is the quality of my output. Beyond that, you can make something great and it disappears.” ~ Alison, Artisan News interview 2013