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“For me, the sweet spot in music is when happy and sad come together,” Archie Fairhurst—aka Romare—tells Apple Music. “When they meet in the middle, that’s what I’m trying to create.” Four years on from the experimental psych-disco of Love Songs: Pt. Two, Fairhurst has shape-shifted to meet this ambition. His third Romare album quests into American gospel and traditional Irish folk via country, hymns, and classical to explore spiritualty, identity, and belonging. It’s cerebral dance music that sits comfortably on dance floors and more reflective solo environments. Here’s Fairhurst to take you through the superb Home, track by track.

Gone
“I feel like this song is about getting lost and then finding a way out. There is a key change which lends to this theme. At times the mood can be dark and at other points it can be light. I remember having the levels up very high in the studio while making the bassline.”

Dreams
“This song underwent a lot of changes before the final version. It contains a gospel sample, but there is more of a focus on instrument composition in this song. A lot of the inspiration came from a newly acquired Casio CZ-1000 synthesizer and from the song ‘Stop’ by B.W.H.”

Sunshine
“I named this song ‘Sunshine’ because of the lyric ‘Through the sunshine’ in its second half. It started off as a melody line over some chords in the key of A minor, which eventually became the breakdown section in the middle of the song. Other melody and basslines were developed from this breakdown section, and then drum patterns and percussion were added from an MFB-522 analog drum machine and my brother’s old Casio keyboard to form the verses.”

The River
“This song probably has the most samples. I came across a nice drum break on a record and then fitted an instrumental loop from another record on top. I distorted a kick drum for the bottom end, which glued these parts together and formed the basis of the song. Like ‘Gone,’ ‘The River’ is a bit of a journey but with more building and release of tension.”

Deliverance
“It’s a simple song but one that I continued to enjoy while working on the album. It’s quite peaceful, and the alternating bassline just about makes up for the sparseness and simplicity of the arrangement and instrumentation. The hiss in the classical music sample also fills in this gap a little.”

High
“This song started off through playing around with a Korg EMX. I liked the sound of the kick drum underneath this snarling synth line which I modulated to pan quickly from left to right. I also enjoyed experimenting with a more acid bassline on this one.”

You See
“I wanted to go deeper on this song. I feel like it is one of the better-produced songs on the record. My favorite section occurs between 3:52 and 3:55. I also like the way there is a pause before the final section, which is another favorite part because it reminds me of dancing around the living room to Enya with my mother as a little boy.”

Heaven
“I’m pretty sure this started as a riff I whistled or hummed one morning. I remember the song began much slower but I felt an urge to increase the tempo, so I did and that informed the style of the song. I was inspired to develop this into one of the longest songs I’ve written after playing a live version at Printworks in London at the end of 2018. The performance gave me the confidence to extend the song and turn it into more of a rollercoaster, with more ups and downs.”

Home
“I was experimenting with my mother’s accordion during a recording and played a few accidental chords at the end while putting the instrument down. Listening back to the recording, I thought there was something nice about this final section, so I looped it and built the song around that. I like the way my father’s 12-string guitar and my mother’s accordion feature in the same song.”