LIAM DAWSON OF TAPE RUNS OUT
Recorded and produced by Liam and Dan Dawson (band’s guitarist) at Dan’s home studio over the course of a year, the Floodhead thrives off experimenting with different textures and sounds, with each song seeking to be its own microcosm of creativity, delivering its unique part within the whole. The painstaking detail and time spent by Liam and Dan between the initial recording session during the summers of 2021 and 2022 has resulted in an incredible production, and one that takes the listener through the Tape Runs Out universe. Taking the time out to elaborate on each of the ten songs on Floodhead, Liam details their meaning and inner workings as he joins Musicology's Making Tracks to explain them in further detail.
JAB: This one was written intentionally as a moody opener, although it originally had an extended groove-outro which we decided last minute to cut in favour of getting to the meat of the album quicker. We usually stick it back on when we play it live though, as it’s a bit of a crowd-pleaser. We hope it sets the scene in terms of atmosphere and lyrical content, as well as introducing a lot of the instruments and textures that the rest of the album utilises.
ARK: Ark started off as a particularly jazzy midi demo made by our bassist Tak, who sent it to me a few years ago. At some point I found it again and thought it had potential to be a great TRO song, so I made a few changes, added a vocal part and some guitar bits, and we re-recorded it at the studio. We like to think of it as Tak’s baby that I adopted and raised as my own. Lyrically it deals with the kind of self-doubt and self-loathing that is present throughout the album, with references to a growing collection of various hobbies and projects that once felt like they’d turn into something special but remain forever unfinished.
SOUVENIR: Souvenir took about as long to write as it does to listen to - even the synth solo was written in one take and was supposed to just represent that a synth solo could be here if we want one. I sent the demo to Dan and he sent back a studio-recorded version which is, by large, what you hear on the album. It’s our big rock number, and we were actually in two minds about having it on the album at all, since it’s quite distinct from the others, but it sounded too good to not include.
THE GARDEN PT1: We used to have a song called Yodel of Devotion which had a cool little guitar riff, but as a song never quite felt right, so I deleted everything apart from the riff and tried to write another song around it, and what came out was this song. The original riff only survives at the very end of the choruses and in the outro, but at least it inspired something. The lyrics are a bit more macro and existential than the rest of the album, focusing more on our place in a violent and unpredictable universe than smaller details about myself.
THE GARDEN PT2: This was a very old composition that was originally an outro to a completely different song but was the only part I liked. I wanted to use it for the album and felt like it suited The Garden best, since it has a similar dreamy feel and very similar lyrical themes. We debated having The Garden as just one track with both halves but decided to split it so that we’d be free to release the first half as a single if needed.
IN THE MUDDLES: In The Muddles is another very old one that I rediscovered whilst picking songs for the album. We essentially just re-recorded all the parts as they were in the original demo and improvised an outro. It serves as a breakpoint between the two halves of the album and is definitely the most abstract track we have on this particular release, which is otherwise very song-oriented. It was the most divisive track that made the cut from our long list of potential album songs, but one that I fought for in particular.
OVERSEAS ASSIGNMENT: Overseas Assignment is a song that’s been threatening to be on releases for years, but I’m glad I saved it for our first album. It hasn’t changed much since it was first written (although it was trimmed down from about six minutes), and has always been a favourite. It was originally slated to be the final song on the album, but when I wrote Pillowtalk it got bumped down to a middle-album rouser. It was probably the song with the least ‘versions’ during production, as our first mix sounded pretty good straight away and we didn’t want to mess with it too much.
PAPERBACK: Out of all of the songs on the album, Paperback has had the longest journey. Every section has been tweaked and reworked numerous times, and there’s been a wealth of rejected lyrics and vocal melodies. The first version some years ago was more of a straight-up rock song, with a heavier emphasis on the chorus hook. After years of coming back to it and tweaking I was about to give up on it entirely, but then decided to try changing the first chord from a minor to a major and it suddenly sprang to life again. I changed the lyrics once again to fit more into the theme of the album and there it was. I can’t remember what version number the final edit was, but it was high.
90°C: This one comes from an old demo I did called ‘Steam’ that was very electro and never went anywhere, but I liked the chord progression and vocal melody, so when it came to choosing songs for the album I decided to revive it and write a new ending. The layers of strings at the end are now one of my favourite bits of the album.
PILLOWTALK: For such a lengthy song, by our standards, this one didn’t take long to write at all. Both halves came out fully formed, and recording it was remarkably painless. We had a lot of fun getting self-indulgently carried away with post-rock guitars in the outro, which is usually my favourite part of our live set. The dreamy bit in the middle of the first half is actually an outro from another discarded song, but I wanted it somewhere on the album and this seemed like a good place for it to go.
