Gareth Dunlop - No. 79 (2017)

Gareth Dunlop's new album 'No.79' was recorded at his home in East Belfast, Northern Ireland.

“We moved into our house in Belfast about 3 years ago. Spending months at a time away from the house, it just felt right to make this record in my own home. As well as it being somewhere I’m most comfortable, it just has a cool vibe and sound to it, and I wanted to capture that. Something different happens when the studio comes to the musicians… it forces you to approach things differently and think outside of the box. The songs we recorded were all written in the months leading up to the session and I think the emotions of the songs were very much still on the forefront of my mind.”

There are limitations to recording in a house and I wanted to use those restraints as an opportunity to be more creative. It made us all use our instruments in a different way… because we didn’t have a string quartet, we taped up the strings on my old piano to emulate a string part on ‘What It Wants’. That was the story for most days... If we didn’t have it, we had to make it. I spent a couple of weeks driving my family crazy getting the house ready and sound treating the rooms. It wasn’t until we recorded the first take of the first song that I knew it would work. Having great musicians and great friends in my home made the process of recording these songs so much more enjoyable.”