Egypt Station Producer Greg Kurstin: “He’s Pushing The Boundaries”

Paul McCartney is “pushing the boundaries” on his new LP Egypt Station, according to the album’s producer Greg Kurstin in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. The album was recorded across a period of two years when McCartney had downtime between tours and will be released on September 7th. Kurstin told RS that working with McCartney at Abbey Road Studios was an overwhelming experience:

I learned a lot about him. I love that he’s pushing the boundaries in his songwriting harmonically and lyrically. I was really struck by the chords that he’d bring into the session. I’m a pianist myself, so I was just amazed at his harmony and his use of melody and chords in the past. I would see him bringing in new chord progressions that I still haven’t heard. Just when you think you’ve heard everything in recorded music, he brings in a song like “Despite Repeated Warnings.” I have never heard a song ever written with that chord progression. That also goes for “I Don’t Know.” He’s able to make something fresh, but it also sounds familiar.

According to Kurstin most of the songs on the new album were far from finished when McCartney brought them in during the recording sessions.

Sometimes he’d come in with a little bit of piano part with a vocal that he recorded on a phone. Sometimes at the studio in England he would kind of demo a little idea by himself where he’d play a few different instruments. Sometimes they were a little bit more arranged, but most of the time it was just a sketch of an idea. Sometimes he’d work them out in rehearsal with the band.

McCartney’s touring band is on the album, but only on a few song. Paul plays a lot of drums and piano, most of the bass parts and “sometimes guitar”. On many of the songs he is playing most of the instruments. And, as you could expect I’d almost say, there’s a lot of variety on the album:

He would mention the variety that Beatles records had and he wanted to bring in different moods, different ideas. There are some songs that just rock and there’s some that are more acoustic and there’s a Brazilian-influenced one and just so many different kind of things. Sonically, he wanted to avoid anything ordinary. He wanted to experiment. 

Kurstin also discussed several tracks from the album, such as the opener Station I:

That started with a choir piece that Paul had worked out on the keyboard. Then we brought in David Campbell to help arrange the choir. We went into a cathedral to record that, which was really cool. It started with us in the studio. Paul had worked out some chords that he wanted the voices to do. Then we started creating different ambient noises, some of which came from tape loops. He had a little portable reel-to-reel player, the one they used on Revolver for “Tomorrow Never Knows.” That was done on this little Brenell tape machine. We created some of the sounds on that, like slowing down guitars.

The LP consists sixteen tracks, but at least 20-25 songs were recorded, of which Kurstin believes all of them will be released in some way at some point. There are rumors that the album’s Deluxe Edition, scheduled for release in October, will contain 24 tracks. 
Thanks to this interview, also new song titles are revealed. These tracks are known so far (with the first three in the right order):

Station I
I Don’t Know
Come On To You
Back in Brazil
Happy With You
Hunt You Down
Despite Repeated Warnings
For You
Confidante
Station II

The full interview can be read here.

More News:

New McCartney Tour Announced: Freshen Up Tour
CarPaul Karaoke Brings Beatles Back In Charts
“Retire From What?” McCartney Back On Tour This Summer

André Homan

André Homan is a Dutch writer and journalist.

Nieuwere post Oudere post