Well, here we are… album release week. I never thought that I’d be releasing the album in these circumstances, but there you go. However dire the global situation, I never considered delaying the release. Partly because I think it’s important now more than ever for musicians to be putting their art into the world, but also because this plan has been years in the making, and nothing was going to get in the way.
The catalyst for this project was the ending of an 8-year relationship, and the album was written in a subsequent period of intense grief. I had no intention of releasing this music when I wrote it, it was simply a way for me to process my feelings, which is probably why I felt confident enough to write the lyrics: ‘when we got drunk we burned our cheese on toast.’
My ex-girlfriend and I were both going through a really hard time — our landlord had kicked us out of our tiny studio flat in East London we had lived in for three years with very little notice, and we didn’t have enough money to afford the deposit for a new place, so we (me, my ex-girlfriend and my cat Whiskey) were left with no choice but to move back into my parents’ house. Of course, I feel extremely lucky that I grew up in London and the option to move back home was available to me, but the idea of moving back to my family home after 10 years of independence was extremely daunting.
For a few weeks we adjusted to a new pace of life. My parents were kind enough to not charge us any rent, so we had more disposable income. We ate out a lot, drank a lot, and tried to keep out of the house as much as possible. But something began to eat away. It was slow at first, but then I couldn’t ignore it. Alcohol helped to numb it slightly, but then it came back worse. I was regressing. I felt like a failure. I had no money, no job, and it was getting harder and harder to get up every day. Eventually, it began to take its toll on our relationship. One day I was in my little home studio, and she came and told me that she was moving out, and she thought it would be best if I didn’t come with. I was confused and upset, but she was firm. In hindsight, I appreciate that.
She found a flat in South London. I helped her move her things from my family home in my extremely old Volkswagen Beetle. The engine started smoking and overheating on Vauxhall Bridge, which felt eerily prescient. We decided to go on a break at first. Our contact dropped significantly after her move, which made me realise that the main thing that was holding us together was the fact that we lived together. Over the years, we had become less of a couple, more flatmates.
I carried on floating through life in vague confusion. I reconnected with friends, applied for jobs, and tried to distract myself with music. I wrote a few songs that would end up on the album. Christmas was a difficult period. Coming from a Jewish family, I never really celebrated Christmas, so every year I went up North to celebrate with her family. I fell in love with Christmas. Her family were so welcoming, and it was always such a magical time. It was the perfect antidote to London; cold, clean air, rolling hills and warm pubs. Finding myself in London for Christmas was a stark antithesis. Thankfully, my friend Ellie invited me round to her family home for Christmas that year. We spent Christmas Day helping at her local church in Deptford, and then we ate with her family. I will never forget that act of kindness and I’m eternally grateful to her.
I texted my ex on New Years Eve and she didn’t respond — I could feel something had shifted. We met up in Soho in early January so she could give me her family’s Christmas presents to me. She told me definitively that it was over. Looking at the Christmas presents, and knowing I’d likely never be in contact with her family again, I started to cry, and kept crying until people around me started looking. I cried for a few days, or weeks, I don’t remember. The next few months were a blur, but a lot of the songs on Perfume came from that time.
Things have changed a lot since then. I’m a stronger person, and I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. I have a new girlfriend and we’re in love, but that experience will always stay with me. We spent 8 years together, we were so young when we met. We’ve spoken a couple of times since then, but I think there’s an unspoken agreement to leave what we had in the past. We will always have the memory of Christmas, getting our cat, moving into our first flat together. But now, with the release of this album, I can finally draw a line under that experience.
I decided to call the album Perfume because of how powerful smell can be. For me anyway, a familiar smell can send me back in time like no other sense can. And when I smelled a jumper she had left behind, it brought everything back again. This album came from a genuine place of suffering, and if you’re going through something similar, I hope it gives you comfort to know that with the help of friends and family, I got came out the other side a better, stronger person.