Travis' Sixth Studio Album (2008)
editThe band announced in December 2007 that a short tour was planned for February 2008, with only 5 dates in different small club venues around the UK. And that shortly after, they would start recording their sixth studio album, the title of which is yet to be officially announced. Fran said he would like to record the entire album in 2 weeks,[1] having been inspired by the quickness and simplicity of their recent recording session with Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick while participating in a BBC programme celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album. The band road-tested the new material in these February 2008 club shows.
Travis band member bassist Dougie Payne is writing an Official daily diary on the Travis website that can be found at the link provided [2] everyday for two weeks until the 2nd March 2008 whilst they record the album at Rak Studios in London, in which he mentions the 11 song titles below directly in his entries:-
"Franny decides he is in the mood to sing and let's rip on 'Chinese Blues'."
"We decide to put the songs down in the order that we were playing them in the shows so next up is 'J. Smith'."
"With spirits up and enthusiasm at a premium we then, in quick succession, rattle off 'Something Anything' and 'Long Way Down'!"
"This breaks the tradition of recording the tunes in live running order, but means that we get to do 'Get Up'."
"We have to get 'Last Words' done before Friday as we have Sally coming in with a string quartet to do a little arrangement for it."
"We set up for an atmospheric evening doing the mean and moody 'Broken Mirror'."
"Up next it's 'Quite Free'."
"We also got them to sprinkle a little magic on 'Song To Self'."
"'Friends' is a rather lovely thing and has to be played in a very laid back fashion."
"We have to hold fire on tracking 'Before You Were Young' as the gong doesn't arrive until Monday."
These are the same songs planned for the upcoming album that were played on the recent February club tour.
It was announced in February 2008 that Travis have left Independiente Records as they had "come to the end of our deal and decided to go as it was time to start afresh", according to Fran Healy. Bassist Dougie Payne and his wife, the actress Kelly Macdonald, are expecting their first child and the band have promised themselves they’ll have finished recording their sixth album before it arrives in March 2008. It is expected that the album itself will be released in the late Summer of 2008 after Dougie returns from paternity leave and Travis find a suitable new record label to release it on.