It's What I'm Thinking Part One: Photographing Snowflakes

VINYL FORMAT. Penning the soundtrack to last year's Caroline Aherne film The Fattest Man in Britain sparked a period of unprecedented creativity for Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy), resulting in a wealth of great new songs. Invigorated and inspired by the approach of artists like mid-period Bob Dylan or Neil Young, who would go into the studio to record an album when the songs were flowing, rather than when the music industry cycle dictated to them, Gough decided the best way to capture this surge, and give the songs the exposure they deserved, was to release a trilogy of albums. "I've got such a wealth of ideas I want to work on," explains Gough, "and intrinsically, as a creative person, you don't want to switch off the flow of ideas, because that's what keeps you ticking." The trilogy is called It's What I'm Thinking - "It's just a wry comment on the fact that that's all I'm doing, just writing the songs, and within the songs is what I'm thinking" - and the subheading of the first album is Photographing Snowflakes. "I was having a drink one night with some friends and someone said 'What do you think is the hardest job ever?'" explains Gough, "and to me it's got to be photographing snowflakes. It's impossible. People do it but I've no idea how they do it." It's also an analogy for what Gough wants to achieve with this trilogy, grabbing those moments or songs that come from nowhere and capturing the moment. Photographing snowflakes.