The Smile on BBC Radio 6

Cutouts is the third Smile album in two years and the second that year, and the band have otherwise done no press at all, letting the records arrive by themselves. Tom Skinner is the one who agreed to talk to Matt Everitt.

He pushes back gently on the idea that the pace is relentless. They have never thought in terms of albums, he says, only a steady, natural workflow that has run since the beginning. Two records in a year comes down to Wall of Eyes and Cutouts being largely started at the same sessions, with the third record finished after they reconvened.

The room is set up to remove friction. Guitars, basses, drums, keyboards and synthesisers stay set up in a calm space, so whichever direction an idea wants to go, nobody has to stop and fetch anything. Some of both records was made at Abbey Road, where he had never recorded before and clearly enjoyed it.

Asked how decisions get made, he says they follow instinct and go where the music seems to be pointing.