(above photograph by Jade Ferguson @visualpoetssociety, design by Von Bishop @ivy_creative)

Satellite Mile, the project by Ben Love, will be releasing debut album ‘The Water’s Edge’ on July 24th. Produced by Ben Love and Peet Gardner and mixed by Paul Gomersall (Kate Bush, George Michael and Echo And The Bunnymen).

With singles ‘Recurring Dreams’ and ‘The Water’s Edge’ already born into the ether, what lies ahead is an atmospheric, reality-bending body of work. A beautiful use of synthesizers, lyricism and story, where you choose the destination.

Your debut album ‘The Water’s Edge’ is coming out on the 24th of July, when I listened to it, I felt like I was traveling through a dystopian end of times movie soundtrack. What were you envisioning when writing the album?

I started with some material that was already hanging around and I made new demos of those and as they took shape, I’d shown them to some people, had some good feedback and developed them from there.

In terms of themes I’d say that it was a bit case by case, song by song. Its turned out there’s a bit of a dream theme happening, so the opening and the closing we’ve got ‘Hypnagogia’ and ‘Hypnapompia’ which are states of sleep. Hypnagogia is when you fall asleep and  enter the dream and at the end you come out, hypnapompia.

I was super intrigued by all the titles of the songs, especially Hypnagogia and Hypnapompia. How did you come up with some of the other titles and how did that fit into the whole mood and story of the album?

I didn’t necessarily set out from the beginning to make it like a dream … it fell that way as I went along.

‘Recurring dreams’, as the lyrics came together, it’s along the lines of some sort of dream experience or imagery from the perspective of the narrator. I like the idea of recurring dreams and people having these dreams and they’re not sure what they mean, there might be some imagery or symbolism going on there, and it’s fun to try interpret that and see where that might lead you.

‘Nowhere’ is along the lines of maybe your thinking all these things through and you have these experiences and you wonder is it going to lead you to nowhere? Maybe there’s nothing to find, maybe you’re looking for something, it’s a bit of a play on that, maybe it’s leading to nothing, to nowhere.

‘Limits of Language,’ which is an acoustic fingerstyle piece in the middle of the album. The title of that is actually from an Alan Watts lecture where he’s talking about how we tie ourselves in knots with the language we use. Sometimes the language has some limits, sometimes you can’t convey or express what you might like to say which I suppose works well with an instrumental.

How long did this body of work take to complete and did you encounter any bumps along the way?

The writing took place over a long period. A couple of the songs began its life in my prior music entity, they were an obvious place to start to maybe set the course where this might lead, and this was before I was singing as well. Some of them are quite old and I’ve picked them back up again and developed them. 

With the song ‘Disillusion’, the beginnings of that are very old, but the section on the end is very new and I did that here at home, right at the end of the process.

‘The Water’s Edge’ was one of the more recent pieces. There was actually twelve or thirteen pieces that I took in and then we ended up with 10. The recording was done in pieces, so there were 2 or 3 main chunks and we did some other sessions to pick up some things. I did a few things at home but the vast majority of it was done in West End. It’s tricky to say how long it took but it took a while.

What is your personal favourite track from the album or the track that stands out the most?

 I think my favourite would be ‘The Water’s Edge.’ I enjoy the task of piecing together something like that, that moves through a few different movements, I think it’s probably the longest song on the album and I like the way that it came together. 

By that stage I was singing and feeling ok about that so I was able to approach it with more confidence and I knew where things were starting to lead music wise. I was getting more of a handle on being in command of the synthesizers and that element.

So things like the middle section on the album version of ‘The Water’s Edge’, as opposed to the one from the film clip which is shorter… I find that thing exciting when it’s piecing together something that’s shifting between a few  different types of sections and making it work as a coherent piece of music. 

You have the album launch at the Powerhouse on August 30, can you tell us a bit about what the live shows is going to encompass?

We’ve been rehearsing the material for quite a while, we have a good coherent repertoire and now we’ve figured out how to pull this all off live which has taken a bit of technical learning on my part, because we do it without using any pre-recorded backing tracks. There will be two of us on stage and it’ll be myself and Geoff Green, the drummer from the band George.

We will play a bit longer because it’s the launch event and will be a little bit more in control over the space. There will be a couple of things that we do there that will be one offs, things we wouldn’t normally do but I don’t want to give away too much of what that is.

To finish off this Q&A, what is something that people may find surprising about the album?

I think the album has appeal for music lovers who enjoy different types of music being blended together, there’s a lot of different sounds on here. It was very lucky to have Paul Gomersall mix the album, which we talked about last time, he’s got an extraordinary resume and I think it’s sonically really interesting and there’s lot of different things going on, both in terms of production and instrumentation and the interweaving of the rhythmic stuff and guitars and synthesizers. There’s a lot to be into for anyone that’s a music lover and interested to hear something unique. 

In terms of something surprising, there’s the acoustic thing in the centre that’s a little bit unexpected, you know the front half and the second half I think are a little different, which was the reason for having the break in the middle. It flows really nicely as a listening experience, particularly if people get the vinyl. I think it’s definitely something to put on, listen through and have a bit of an experience.

Pre-Save The Water’s Edge here

Tickets for album launch at the Powerhouse on August 30 here

Follow Satellite Mile on Instagram here