Florence Welch and longtime friend and collaborator Isabella Summers outside Abbey Road Studios, where they are currently recording their second album as we speak.
They've been in the studio for nearly a month! All they really have to do is recording, and I just got an email from the official Florence website that they are in the studio, seems to me things are going quite well!
TEMPLES, MCQUEEN AND NEW YORK DREAMS Mon 16 May, 2011
Hello everybody!
I haven't written one of these in a while; sorry for neglecting you. I do hope this finds you all just splendid.
I'm back in Blighty now; the birds are singing, the summer's nearly here, I miss you all and hope to see you soon.
We've started recording the new record, excitingly, at the famous Abbey Road Studios. Haven't quite managed to get our pictures taken on that legendary zebra crossing yet, but we do spend a lot of time looking over at other people's attempts. Lying down in the middle of it seems to be popular, weirdly. Bit dangerous if you ask me.
The other week I had the enormous privilege and honour of being asked to perform at the Met Ball in New York, in celebration of the incredible new Alexander McQueen retrospective 'Savage Beauty.'It was such an amazing night in honour of an amazing and dazzlingly talented man. It's impossible to describe just how beautiful and terrifying and genuinely moving the exhibition is: I implore you to go and see it if you can. The depths of McQueen's creativity and imagination are just astounding.
Performing right in front of the magnificent Temple of Dendur was just incredible. The best stage set you could ever ask for, though I don't think The Metropolitan Museum will be letting me borrow it any time soon. It's from 15 BC so I guess it's like, priceless, pretty much.
Also - DREAM OF DREAMS - I got to work with the fabulous Baz Lurhmann; one of my favourite directors of all time. In Baz I think I may have finally met my maximalist partner in crime. It was so fun putting the Met Ball show together with him; there were moons, choirs, fires, temples, mystery lute players. It was like 'Indiana Jones; The Musical.' Only with David Bowie in drag playing Indiana.
It's so lovely being back in London. I love this town, and I love you all.
See you out there somewhere. Will write again soon!
Always
love
from,
Florence..x
“The new record is much more coherent. It’s more bombastic, kind of an Animal Collective, Kate Bush, super-heavy rock kind of thing. It could only be Florence. She’s found a new backdrop against which to set her tales of unrequited love and devils and Tim Burton-esque romantic stories. She’s more relaxed, more level. This time, it’s more about the battle between her head and her heart and that transition everyone goes through in their mid-twenties, where you let go of the chaos of your youth. I think she’s ready to take on the world with this record.”
— Paul Epworth on the new album!
A lot of the songs on the new album are about imaginary things, things that you can’t touch — ghosts and rumors, my dead grandmother, things visiting you in a dream.
-- Florence Welch