Sam Shepherd’s Floating Points Ensemble are currently recording an album for the Ninja Tune label, with sessions taking place at the London’s historic Abbey Road studio.

Shepherd (pictured above), who uses the name Floating Points for his acclaimed solo productions and DJ turns, speaks about the group project in a Resident Advisor feature on Eglo Records.

“We recorded a track there [at Abbey Road], and it took all day because they’re big pieces and I’m quite picky,” Shepherd tells RA‘s Richard Carnes. “We agonise over where the microphones are. We like to experiment. At the end of the day, you’re capturing a recording of something that’s quite special. You really want it to be exactly how you want, and you just play around.

“A lot of the ideas that I have for the engineer, I’m talking to the engineer and it’s like ‘I want it to be really sort of ethereal, but I want the drums to be really punchy.’ Complete polar opposite ideas of what I want. What I’m trying to say is that I want paradoxically impossible things to happen.”

The Ninja Tune deal was negotiated for Shepherd by Eglo Boss and Rinse FM stalwart Alex Nut, who explains the decision to branch out from Eglo’s fiercely independent base:

“We’re quite adamant when labels approach us…that when you look at the accounts and the statistics, you’re better off doing it yourself. You either pay 50%, or you put it out through someone else and you hardly see anything. Unless there’s something to really get out of it, like a label funding us and putting us in Abbey Road at our request, we’ll just do it ourselves.”

The exact personnel of the Floating Points Ensemble is unknown to us at this time, but we do know that vocalist Fatima is involved. The earliest we can envisage the album being released is Winter 2010; we’ll update you when we know more. Read the full RA Eglo feature here.