Phil Selway on The John Fugelsang Podcast

Before there were any songs for Strange Dance, Philip Selway had the sound of it, in the form of a fantasy collaboration he had built in his head. In it Carole King made an album with one of the pioneers of British electronic music and then invited him along to drum on it. That imagined record set the terms for the real one.

He wanted something broad and tall enough for a listener to walk around inside. Within that he had a clear idea of which musical voices he wanted, drawn largely from people he had worked with across his solo records, Portishead's guitarist among them.

He tells John Fugelsang about a cover he asked permission to record. What had captivated him was a home demo of it, cut on an old reel-to-reel with birdsong in the background, with an immediacy that suggested it was made soon after the song was written. Once permission came, he says, the pleasure was immediately replaced by a sense of responsibility.