Sound check · Glasgow−∞−48−36−24−18−12−9−6−3−10dB
NIGHT FERRY
Levels up
Studio
Nine days in Leith
How «Harbour Lights» got made: one room, no headphones, and a rule that the first take we all liked was the take.
- KindStudio
- Date02 Oct 2026
- Read5 min
Studio
Nine days in Leith
How «Harbour Lights» got made: one room, no headphones, and a rule that the first take we all liked was the take.
- KindStudio
- Date02 Oct 2026
- Read5 min
Studio
Nine days in Leith
How «Harbour Lights» got made: one room, no headphones, and a rule that the first take we all liked was the take.
- KindStudio
- Date02 Oct 2026
- Read5 min
We booked nine days at a small studio by the shore in Leith and gave ourselves one rule before we loaded in: no headphones. All four of us in the same room, amps turned to face the wall, the drums in the middle where everyone could see Callum's sticks. If the first take we all liked had a wrong note in it, the wrong note stayed.
That sounds romantic. Mostly it was a lot of moving rugs around. The room has a wooden floor that rings at about 180 Hz, so day one went on blankets, a sofa we dragged in from the hall, and a sheet of plywood under the bass amp that Ama swears made it sound "like a ship's engine, in a good way".
How a day went
- 10:00 — tea, and one run of the song with the desk muted, just to hear it in the room.
- 11:00 to 15:00 — takes. Never more than six of a song in a row. After six you start playing the take, not the song.
- 15:00 — soup from the cafe on the corner, then listening back with the lights off.
- Evening — overdubs only if the song asked for one. Most did not.
The desk is an old 24-channel console with a meter bridge that lights up like a harbour at night, which is where the album title finally came from. Jude kept a mug on the bridge all week. It never moved, and somehow it is in every photo.
CH 0 · Cue“If the first take we all liked had a wrong note in it, the wrong note stayed.
The songs that changed
"Gourock at Two" came in as a four-minute song and left as a five-minute one, because on the third take Jude kept playing after the ending and nobody wanted to stop him. That coda is the take. "The Quiet Deck" was meant to be a full-band song; on day six we tried it with just brushes and Ezra's voice in the corner of the room, the bleed from the piano mic and all, and that is the version on the record.
The only thing we fixed afterwards was a car horn outside during "Brake Lights". We tried to keep it. It was in the wrong key.
What you will hear
You will hear the room. You will hear Callum count in on two of the songs, a chair creak in "Paper Boats", and Ama laughing at the very end of the title track because she thought the tape had stopped. We could have cleaned all of that up. We decided the record is better with the people still in it.
Harbour Lights is out on 07 November on Lowwater Records. Pre-save it, and come and hear it played the same way, all four faders up, on the winter tour.
— Callum, for the band
We booked nine days at a small studio by the shore in Leith and gave ourselves one rule before we loaded in: no headphones. All four of us in the same room, amps turned to face the wall, the drums in the middle where everyone could see Callum's sticks. If the first take we all liked had a wrong note in it, the wrong note stayed.
That sounds romantic. Mostly it was a lot of moving rugs around. The room has a wooden floor that rings at about 180 Hz, so day one went on blankets, a sofa we dragged in from the hall, and a sheet of plywood under the bass amp that Ama swears made it sound "like a ship's engine, in a good way".
How a day went
- 10:00 — tea, and one run of the song with the desk muted, just to hear it in the room.
- 11:00 to 15:00 — takes. Never more than six of a song in a row. After six you start playing the take, not the song.
- 15:00 — soup from the cafe on the corner, then listening back with the lights off.
- Evening — overdubs only if the song asked for one. Most did not.
The desk is an old 24-channel console with a meter bridge that lights up like a harbour at night, which is where the album title finally came from. Jude kept a mug on the bridge all week. It never moved, and somehow it is in every photo.
CH 0 · Cue“If the first take we all liked had a wrong note in it, the wrong note stayed.
The songs that changed
"Gourock at Two" came in as a four-minute song and left as a five-minute one, because on the third take Jude kept playing after the ending and nobody wanted to stop him. That coda is the take. "The Quiet Deck" was meant to be a full-band song; on day six we tried it with just brushes and Ezra's voice in the corner of the room, the bleed from the piano mic and all, and that is the version on the record.
The only thing we fixed afterwards was a car horn outside during "Brake Lights". We tried to keep it. It was in the wrong key.
What you will hear
You will hear the room. You will hear Callum count in on two of the songs, a chair creak in "Paper Boats", and Ama laughing at the very end of the title track because she thought the tape had stopped. We could have cleaned all of that up. We decided the record is better with the people still in it.
Harbour Lights is out on 07 November on Lowwater Records. Pre-save it, and come and hear it played the same way, all four faders up, on the winter tour.
— Callum, for the band
We booked nine days at a small studio by the shore in Leith and gave ourselves one rule before we loaded in: no headphones. All four of us in the same room, amps turned to face the wall, the drums in the middle where everyone could see Callum's sticks. If the first take we all liked had a wrong note in it, the wrong note stayed.
That sounds romantic. Mostly it was a lot of moving rugs around. The room has a wooden floor that rings at about 180 Hz, so day one went on blankets, a sofa we dragged in from the hall, and a sheet of plywood under the bass amp that Ama swears made it sound "like a ship's engine, in a good way".
How a day went
- 10:00 — tea, and one run of the song with the desk muted, just to hear it in the room.
- 11:00 to 15:00 — takes. Never more than six of a song in a row. After six you start playing the take, not the song.
- 15:00 — soup from the cafe on the corner, then listening back with the lights off.
- Evening — overdubs only if the song asked for one. Most did not.
The desk is an old 24-channel console with a meter bridge that lights up like a harbour at night, which is where the album title finally came from. Jude kept a mug on the bridge all week. It never moved, and somehow it is in every photo.
CH 0 · Cue“If the first take we all liked had a wrong note in it, the wrong note stayed.
The songs that changed
"Gourock at Two" came in as a four-minute song and left as a five-minute one, because on the third take Jude kept playing after the ending and nobody wanted to stop him. That coda is the take. "The Quiet Deck" was meant to be a full-band song; on day six we tried it with just brushes and Ezra's voice in the corner of the room, the bleed from the piano mic and all, and that is the version on the record.
The only thing we fixed afterwards was a car horn outside during "Brake Lights". We tried to keep it. It was in the wrong key.
What you will hear
You will hear the room. You will hear Callum count in on two of the songs, a chair creak in "Paper Boats", and Ama laughing at the very end of the title track because she thought the tape had stopped. We could have cleaned all of that up. We decided the record is better with the people still in it.
Harbour Lights is out on 07 November on Lowwater Records. Pre-save it, and come and hear it played the same way, all four faders up, on the winter tour.
— Callum, for the band