‘Make It With You’ is the new single from Rose Elinor Dougall, taken from sessions for her upcoming album, and you can listen to it above. Following glowing reviews for 2017 album Stellular – (described by tQ as “a forward-thinking and often thrilling ride of angular beats, imaginative production and sparkling songs”), Rose returns with a single worlds away from her previous album. A piano ballad, ‘Make It With You’ moves away from the punchy bass, synths and guitar of Stellular to use drum machine under a warm and smoky vocal.
Written in LA alongside Andrew Sarlo, Rose describes the track as “a simple love song, but set against the fear of an uncertain, turbulent future. I suppose this song is about striving to cling onto those ideas [of pursuing love], against what can feel like diminishing odds.”
Rose has also collaborated with her brother Tom and Panda from Toy on a cover of Dave Cousins’ ‘Two Weeks Last Summer’ – “you always learn something from covering these old songs, and it seemed to tie in with the sounds I was using for the new record too” – which is also available online today. We had a chat with Rose to find out more:
Can you tell us about the writing and recording gestation type period for ‘Make It With You’?
Rose Dougall: I began this song about a year ago during a trip to Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to get in the studio with Andrew Sarlo who produced two of my favourite albums of recent times, Big Thief’s Capacity and Nick Hakim’s Green Twins. We threw around a few ideas, and this song started very simply from some chords i came up with on an old pump organ that was in the corridor. There was a Roland drum box in the room which became the central rhythm sound that you hear at the beginning of the song. I then took the demo back to England, reworked the lyrics and developed the arrangement with my band. We began the recording at the beginning of the summer, but have been adding to it gradually over the course of the album sessions. The sound of this song provides a indicator of the sonic template for the rest of the album, with a loose, live feeling band playing in quite a spontaneous way, and the introduction of strings and horns.
Why did you decide to work with the more electronic textures with the drum machine? Is that a pointer towards the new record?
RD: I would actually say on the whole this is a more ‘organic’ Ii hate that word, it indicates something worthy and sanctimonious but sadly seems to be the only one that fits!), sounding album compared to my last one. I tried to veer away from plug-ins or any modern electronic instruments, bar a couple of old synths or drum machines. I wanted there to be a more tangible, tactile quality to the sound of this record, a little more human and intimate, which gives space to the great, sensitive musicians i was lucky enough to work with.
Dougall’s forthcoming album is set for release in Spring 2019.
