Damon Albarn is standing within the doorway of Abbey Highway’s canteen, deep in dialog with The Libertines’ Carl Barat.
Close by, Pulp are queueing for a contemporary batch of lasagne.
Round them, half a dozen of kids are working round, filming every little thing on handheld cameras.
All of them are excitedly awaiting the arrival of Olivia Rodrigo.
These have been the scenes in London final November, as a few of the world’s greatest stars convened to file a brand new charity album in assist of Warchild.
The tracklist, revealed yesterday, is sort of a who’s who of indie rock. Moist Leg, The Final Dinner Get together, Wolf Alice, Fontaines DC, Nilüfer Yanya, Cameron Winter, Ezra Collective, Foals and Younger Fathers all contribute.
Over the course of 1 week, 23 tracks have been recorded. At occasions, 5 of Abbey Highway’s famed studios have been in use, with collaborations arising on the spur of the second.
Blur’s Graham Coxon performs guitar with Rodrigo on a canopy of The Magnetic Fields’ The Ebook Of Love. Damon Albarn’s session noticed him joined by Johnny Marr on guitar, with extra vocals by Kae Tempest and Grian Chatten.
Later within the day, Jarvis Cocker obtained again from a rest room break to seek out all of them in his studio – so he obtained them to sing the intro to a brand new Pulp tune, Begging For Change.
“The simply turned up, so I assumed, ‘Why not?'” he laughs. “I am not used to that form of factor, nevertheless it was actually good.”
The album is the spritual successor to 1995’s Assist! – recorded on the peak of Britpop, and that includes contributions from Paul Weller, Radiohead, Suede, Paul McCartney, The KLF, Portishead and The Manic Avenue Preachers.
It was additionally, famously, the one time Oasis and Blur appeared on the identical file, simply months after their legendary (and acrimonious) chart battle.
“We’ll put apart our variations for the trigger,” Noel Gallagher mentioned on the time. “And it is the one time you will see us agreeing on something.”
The file bought 70,000 copies in its first week, elevating almost £1.25m to assist kids in war-stricken areas, resembling Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2025, the fund-raising is much more pressing. In keeping with Warchild, 520 million kids worldwide – virtually one in 5 – are affected by warfare, with simultaneous crises in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza.
The determine is increased than any time because the Second World Struggle, similtaneously governments internationally are reducing worldwide assist.
“In the meanwhile, there actually does appear to be numerous dangerous issues occurring, and lots of people really feel powerless,” says Cocker.
“They’re wanting on the information and they do not know what to do. So I might hope this album is one thing the individuals can take pleasure in, and in addition know that they are attempting to make a constructive change.”
The primary single, launched on Thursday, is a brand new observe by Arctic Monkeys known as Opening Evening.
A sparse, sinister ballad, it finds Alex Turner singing about political sloganeering and “supercomputer crusades” earlier than a superbly harmonised refrain that provides a message of hope in darkish occasions.
The tune dates again a few years, drummer Matt Helders tells the BBC, however had by no means been completed.
Getting the decision from Warchild was the immediate they wanted to finish the tune, with lyrics that felt like a name to arms.
“With charity information, it is typically tempting to do a canopy, or an attention-grabbing collaboration,” he says, “however we take pleasure in making information and being within the studio, so it was enjoyable to work on one thing that we might written.”
Including to the enjoyable was that movie crew of kids, principally aged between eight and 10, who documented all the recording progress.
They have been corralled by Bafta-winning director Jonathan Glazer (Horny Beast, Beneath The Pores and skin, The Zone Of Curiosity), who wished to attach the music again to the younger individuals it could assist.
“They got free reign to simply roam round, which actually modified the ambiance,” says Helders.
“Studios may be fairly a stiff, medical atmosphere, generally. However they have been strolling round and bumping into stuff. It made it enjoyable.”
Cocker wasn’t so certain.
“I hate anyone watching me sing within the studio, as a result of I am form of a self-conscious individual and someone pointing a digital camera at me does not assist with that,” he says.
“And whereas I used to be singing in there, I feel they have been getting a bit bored, in order that they have been similar to mendacity on the ground and filming the ceiling.”
Finally, he discovered the youngsters’s presence liberating. One thing about their whole lack of curiosity allowed him to shed the concept that the studio recording has to seize “the proper, definitive model” of a tune.
In consequence, Pulp’s contribution to Assist 2 – Begging For Change – has a unfastened, reside band feeling that actually exemplifies the album’s spontaneity and sense of group.
Actually, the youthful digital camera crew even made it onto the file.
“It is an attention-grabbing factor, you understand, as a result of youngsters are at all times advised, ‘Shut up, as a result of I am attempting to assume’, or, ‘Shhh, your dad’s hungover’,” he says.
“So after they’re given the possibility to make a noise, they may try this. So what we tried to do on our tune was to get them to scream, they usually did it very effectively.”
You will not get to listen to that tune till Assist 2 is launched on 6 March. Due to file labels and urgent crops donating their providers freed from cost, it is going to be cheaper than normal albums – with a double vinyl costing round £26 – and Warchild receiving all of the earnings.
“We discovered that this challenge actually lit a hearth underneath the inventive group, ” says Wealthy Clarke, the charity’s head of music. “Numerous individuals wished to get entangled.”
He lets slip that the 23 tracks on the album weren’t the one product of the week-long recording periods.
“There is a there’s an entire load of tracks, round 10 or so, that that got here in when individuals heard concerning the challenge. So really, there have been some robust choices for the workforce about what made it onto the file.”
However Olivia Rodrigo’s tune – concerning the purity of affection – was at all times earmarked because the closing observe.
“It is a actually lovely cowl,” says Clarke.
“The file actually takes you thru a journey, with some highly effective themes round battle, however Olivia leaves you with a observe concerning the redemptive energy of affection, which is a extremely poignant ultimate notice”.
