The Streets new album = Done

Mike Skinner has just announced on his blog that his 4th album is officially complete which is a great look. It's a pretty interesting blog because he talks about something I've been dealing with the last few weeks. I finished 'Devil In The Distance' in September 2007. It was fully mixed and completed in February and it's coming out July 28th. Ever since the day I went back to Brixton from Bristol in September last year I have been planning my next album. I couldn't imagine my first album going any better, all live synths, no samples, a 100% honest account of my life thus far, I consider my album to be perfect. But it was made at that time and since then I've been experimenting with some shit in my head that is so far removed from 'Devil In The Distance' that I sometimes confuse myself (see 'Boyspot'). In March I started to act on these thoughts. Me and Jack have been in the studio whenever we've had a spare minute recording, mixing and writing. Just today I recorded a song called 'Step 2 Skank' which is for all intents and purposes; a Dancehall record. At three of my gigs this year I've played a record me and Jack made with a third party called 'Charge Me (She's Bad)' which is about a prostitute (it's a story. It goes deep). I have a lot of faith in both of these records but they could never have been on 'DITD'. With my first album I spent a lifetime planning, I spent two months writing, I spent six weeks recording and there wasn't much room to say "Fuck it" which I like. But I've only this week started to think "Am I working on my second album?" I think I might be. I'd told myself it was an E.P so I didn't have to commit to it all the way, but the songs are clocking up and they've got a pretty consistent sound (dark, electronic, conceptual). Mike Skinner says his next album is already in his head and that it's way darker than the record he's just finished. I thought it was an interesting parallel, also when he says that he has to live 12 months ahead of his fans, it's weird, when we did Hartlepool a couple of weeks back I didn't do any of the songs from my album and I hardly noticed. Of course that was bad of me because I instantly regretted not adding 'Superhero', 'Get By (Be Good)' and 'That One Time' to the set but it's strange how what I might consider an old record is not an old record and what I consider a new record I recorded the week I debut.

Also, 'That Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living' is a fucking great album.

While I'm on the subject of my weekend in the studio, I put together two new freestyles for my mixtape (sooner than you think) and an exclusive freestyle for Excalibah's next mixtape in the already classic line 'UK Dubstate'.