Song-by-Song: ‘Looking For Love’ by Arborist

Arborist: “So much about making this record was pushing myself as an engineer and producer as well as a songwriter.” Photo: Tristan Crowe

The new album from Belfast’s Mark McCambridge finds inspiration in the beauty, fascinating characters, and dark corners of his hometown

Love, or its absence, lies at the heart of the fourth album from Belfast songwriter Mark McCambridge, aka Arborist. Following 2023’s An Endless Sequence Of Dead Zeros, winner of the Northern Ireland Music Prize, McCambridge takes the reins as producer for the first time. On Looking For Love, his fictional characters roam Belfast’s streets, bars, and darker corners, searching for connection amid the contradictions of modern life.

While McCambridge handles many of the parts himself, the album also features an ensemble of musicians, including regular collaborators and players from Belfast’s vibrant music scene. From an unexpected pipe-organ breakthrough to an off-kilter love letter to his hometown, Looking For Love finds McCambridge exploring new creative territory. Here, he takes us through the album, one song at a time…

Read our in-depth interview with Arborist

LOOKING 4 LOVE

So much about making this record was pushing myself as an engineer and producer as well as a songwriter. It was a lot of hours spent alone in my home studio, throwing things (literally) at the songs and seeing what landed – scrapping elements and rebuilding. It was a necessary journey both for the songs and my longevity as a recording artist. A lot of that experimentation is packed into this opening track. The opening line, “The air is thick with static, down by the SS Nomadic,” opened the floodgates, lyrically, for these songs, so this needed to be track one.

Built around a sample from Jacques Brel’s Marieke and a Roland 808 drumbeat, the song deals with many of the album’s themes – my home city of Belfast, with all its foibles and charms, is the lead character. It’s a wild, beautiful city that haunted me in my youth and have now grown to love. It’s an ode of sorts but one that recognises the darker corners of the place.

EMPTY HANDED

An attempt to convey the enduring and endless disappointment and decay exacted upon humanity by capitalism: “It seems what we’re after was never on offer at all.” I tried to make it big and warm as a counter to the words.

The bulk of the drums, bass, piano, and acoustic guitar were recorded in The Meadow Studios in County Wicklow. You can really hear the room on this song in particular – a lovely big barn-like space originally designed for orchestral recording, I believe.

BYE BYE, JOHNNY CASH

A visit, again, to those dark corners of the city. A seedy tale of a man oppressively visiting a dancer in a strip club. I asked drummer Eamon Ferris to take all the cymbals off his drum kit for this one – with an overdubbed hi-hat – to give it a dry, slightly claustrophobic feel. And obviously we needed a sleazy sax solo, expertly played by Meilana Gillard. Some choice language in there for good measure. The Sophisticats (Clara & Emily Tracey) add beautiful harmonies.

GO KILL THE FATTENED CALF

A nod to my son growing up, ultimately using the parable of the prodigal son. There is a children’s choir in there, Larne Community Youth Choir. Jonny Ashe’s blistering guitar solo is my album highlight. A lot of The Meadow Studio in this one also, I feel – the drum sound and the Hammond Organ motif in the instrumental section in particular. Acoustic guitar is in a John Fahey tuning I often use.

FIRE

Drummer Eamon Ferris was pushing this tempo, so in turn pushed me to play alongside it, and the song spilt out of that little tussle. It’s an outlier but was fun to see how far we could get away from a typical Arborist track, within reason. The tuning is the Irish Trad DADGAD, though this is not Irish Trad music.

A DREAM OF A ROSE

The microKorg part at the end of this song is the same one-take I recorded for a demo version many years ago. We had some spare time in the studio and I asked Cameron Ralston (bass) and Eamon Ferris (drums) to have a go at this against my original demo, and it sounded so good I just built around it from there. The oldest track on the album. Again, it was about trying to push what one may perceive to be “the sound” of an Arborist track. It serves as an interval between the two “acts” of the album, as we enter a calmer, more personal section.

I’VE BEEN A FLANEUR

The most recently written song on the album. During my Fellowship at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University, I was given access to the amazing music department with its Steinways and Pipe Organs. The drone on the pipe organ – and the sound of it starting and stopping – was so visceral that I decided to try a half-written song against it right there and then, and this came out in one take, and I scattered a piano over it straight afterwards. Richard Hill composed a beautiful clarinet section in the middle.

Every element was done in one take; the pieces just fell into place. The song was a breakthrough, artistically; it spawned the ethos for how I want to work in the future. Was also nice to sing about Luke Littler and Ronnie O’Sullivan – a first, I hope.

SONO IO

Originally written for a recent film soundtrack which may never materialise, I slipped it into the track listing one day and realised it was a perfect fit in this very slot, a perfect bridge between the songs before and after. One of the film’s themes is artifice, so I never tried to perfect my Italian pronunciation. I look forward to the feedback from the natives. Strings superbly played by Aga Olek.

WHAT IS IT YOU’RE ASKING?

Love, or its absence, is also a large presence on this record. Whether personal or universal, it has felt like there has been a distinct lack of it in recent years. This is a song about miscommunication and the trouble it can cause. Aisling Agnew’s flute solo is another of my album highlights. Strings by Laura McFadden and the Errigal Ensemble.

EXPLODED VIEW

Touching again on the absence-of-love theme. It encapsulates an ethos of the record, there is much less guitar than previous Arborist LPs, intentionally so. This was recorded in a pretty free way, not a lot of direction; I wasn’t sure how many verses I had and was uncertain about the direction of the breakdown, but the band just seemed to know where to go.

THE TAMING OF HORSES

An older song that had been road-tested during the An Endless Sequence Of Dead Zeros tour. It is sprawling in theme; it was fun to write – the seed was the line about the king, which was written all the way back in 2022, and then a lot of late nights watching Jacob Brownowski’s The Ascent Of Man on BBC, just sensational television that we can show to extraterrestrials when they come.

Arborist’s new album Looking For Love is out now via Fika Recordings. You can find upcoming live shows and more at arboristmusic.com

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