On September 6, Bella Union will release a new seven-song mini-album by Peter Broderick, entitled How They Are.

It’s the 2008 set Home, the making of the album has been somewhat inspired by serious knee surgery undergone by Broderick, and a long period of convalescence.

After Home was released, Broderick returned to the studio with producer Nils Frahm, intending to complete a full-length successor to Home. Good progress was made to begin with, but Broderick was by this point suffering a great deal of pain as a result of his operation, and he decided to hold off finishing the mixes and postponing the album’s release until 2011.

Broderick took to bed to recover properly from the surgery, and during this time he unexpectedly began to write more music.

“Since I couldn’t be up and comfortably playing an instrument,” he recalls, “I started making compositions on the computer screen with words instead of sounds.  And with my musical brain I immediately imagined all of these little stories and poems being turned into songs. I would sing or speak the words into my voice recorder and imagine them being turned into pieces of music with an orchestra underneath, or just a guitar, or just the voice alone.

“Once my knee started improving and I was up walking around again,” Broderick continues, “I took these words that seemed so fresh and exciting to me, and sat down at the piano or with a guitar or a violin, and created many songs in this way.  It was the first time for me as a singer/songwriter that the words came before the music. And in this time alone, and especially after working so long and hard on this huge sounding album with Nils, I was really loving the simplicity and spaciousness of good old fashioned acoustic music. ”

In April of this year Broderick headed to the Type Foundry studio in Portland to record and mix as many of these songs as he could in one day, all performed live and recorded directly to two-inch tape. Seven of the eleven tracks he recorded that day comprise How They Are. He summarises the album thus:

“No tricks, no electronics, just me doing what I can do at once with my voice and an instrument or two, however pathetic or beautiful that might be.”

Tracklist:
1. Sideline
2. Human Eyeballs On Toast
3. Guilt’s Tune
4. When I’m Out
5. With A Key
6. Pulling The Rain
7. Hello To Nils

Peter Broderick solo live dates:

Saturday 16 October – LONDON, St Giles in the Field
Monday 18 October – BRIGHTON, St Mary’s Church
Tuesday 19 October – MANCHESTER, Manchester Academy
Wednesday 20 October – CORK, Pavilion
Thursday 21 October – DUBLIN, Harmonic Series, Whelan’s
Friday 22 October – BRISTOL, Cube
Saturday 23 October – READING, South Street Arts Centre
Sunday 24 October – BIRMINGHAM, Supersonic Festival