Belle And Sebastian are currently at home recording b-sides for future single “White Collar Boy”, brass player/multi-instrumentalist Mick Cook says it’s ‘fun’. And, really, that’s what’s most striking about The Life Pursuit – it sounds like Belle And Sebastian have had fun making it.

“It was a lot of fun to do,” he agrees. “It was good to kind of get back to playing as a band together again. That sounds like a strange thing to say, but I felt with our last couple of albums that since Dear Catastrophe Waitress we were filling out the sound with orchestration because we felt that the performance was lacking somewhat. It was because we hadn’t concentrated on playing together as a band. We hadn’t rehearsed the album to the extent where we were happy with the performance, but with this record it felt like we got what we need and got a rehearsal studio, so we were able to spend a lot of time playing together.

It’s certainly been helped that Stuart Murdoch has written some amazing songs for it. “His writing is stronger than ever,” Mick agrees. “I think at the moment it’s just a joy to play – it makes the whole process very enjoyable.”

The b-sides are lending themselves to a different style, described as “a broody and moody thing” by Mick. “One’s pretty jazzy and it’s quite different – it’s quite actually doing something a bit different for b-sides. You feel you don’t have to come up with a collection of songs that are complementary to each other and you can do whatever you want. It gives you a sense of freedom.”

By comparison, The Life Pursuit is a much more focussed, and determined release than the last couple of Belle And Sebastian albums. Mick explains that the group simply kept coming up with songs, with a myriad of ideas floated for release. “I guess you concentrate on songs that hold together better as an album,” he says of the final result. “We did 18 and then paired that down to the number that’s on the record, and I guess you do tend to group together songs in a way.”

When did it become apparent that it was going to be like this? The Life Pursuit seems like such a natural record, with the band bringing it all together during the rehearsal process. “In terms of it being a band project as opposed to being overly orchestrated we knew that pretty early,” he says, “and I think just because we were playing together and having so much fun doing that and it sounded complete in the rehearsal room – it sounded like every song was already complete, and we knew it wasn’t going to rely on too many orchestrations. That was our remit to the producer – we wanted to get the strongest sounding ‘band sound’ that he could.”

It certainly feels like Stuart has tapped a vein with these songs. After touring Australia, are you going to strike while the iron is hot and record again?

“I think most writing is done when we’re at home,” he wagers. “There’s always ideas kicking about, but you don’t really get a chance to develop those ideas until you get home and take stock, and have time to stop and think. I think when you’re touring you’re so much in touring mode it’s hard to concentrate. Some bands feel like they had to do that, but we’ve kind of been lucky in that we’ve never felt like we’ve had the pressure to rush onto the next album. It feels like it’s different now and there’s the momentum that we need to run with, but at the same time you can’t really rush things; bad things happen when you rush things.”

The Life Pursuit has been the best received Belle And Sebastian album for quite some time. It’s been getting consistently great press in the States, and it’s clear that the band have pushed this release more on the promotional sense than they have in the past. It seems like it’s connecting in a way that the band haven’t since their first three albums.

“It kind of feels like there’s a momentum that’s been gathering around the band, and we’re quite keen not to lose that,” he expresses. “There’s been opportunities before that we’ve passed up, and I feel that we don’t want to do that this time. We’ve been doing a lot of promotion for this album, more than ever. I think part of the reason we’ve avoided it in the past is that we’ve had this idea that doing radio sessions would be tiring or boring, and it’s actually tiring but it doesn’t get boring. You develop new skills in a way, and doing in-stores as well – it could be boring if you made it so, but we take requests and it’s just like playing another gig really, but pared down and kind of fun. It feels spontaneous when you turn up and plug in rather than soundchecking for a few hours.”

What’s clear about The Life Pursuit is that the songs are catchy, and it feels like a more melodically-driven album. “It felt a bit more like going back to the old days, really,” Mick says of the recording process. “Listening back to it it feels like it could be a band’s first album, just because of the energy levels. I think we are in a pretty positive place just now, so it’s good.”

Belle And Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit is out now, with the band touring Australia currently. Dates:
June 7th – Perth Concert Hall
June 9th – Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
June 10th – Forum, Melbourne
June 11th – Forum, Melbourne
June 13th – Enmore Theatre, Sydney