In The North

Kraftwerk have the Autobahn, we have the M1.

Without a doubt, it’s the road we’ve travelled most in The Black Dog. From Sheffield, all the way to where the M1 ends, it’s a road we know almost by heart. It’s also where we have always tested our music, listening for the flow, structure, repetition and response of a track, and how it changes the way we drive.

It was only a matter of time before we made an album specifically for travelling the M1.

Every track was road tested, often repeatedly. We’d work on them during the day, take them out on the road, listen, make changes and go back out again. Different times, different traffic, different weather. The tracks gradually changed to suit the journey.

There’s something strangely relaxing about being alone in a car while surrounded by hundreds of other people, all travelling the same road but going somewhere else. The road repeats itself, the landscape changes and the junctions come and go.

The titles came from thoughts and observations made along the way.

In The North is about the M1, Sheffield, the North and the particular feeling of travelling a road you know by heart.