Our 2023 Annual Report continues with the announcement of James Ford has been named our Producer of the Year. As the year winds down, keep it locked on Consequence for more awards, lists, and articles about the best music, film, and TV of 2023. Check out all our Annual Report content here. You can also listen to this full interview as part of the Consequence UNCUT podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts or via the player below.
James Ford made a name for himself by refusing to be pinned down. The British producer may have commanded audiences for years as a member of Simian Mobile Disco, but his efforts span far beyond the hi-fi romps of dance music. In the last two decades, Ford has helmed albums from Arctic Monkeys and Gorillaz, worked on beloved tracks from HAIM and Florence + the Machine, and nabbed 10 Mercury Prize nominations — two of which came this very year.
2023 was as big a year as James Ford has ever had. In addition to the release of his first solo LP, The Hum, Ford produced Jessie Ware’s That! Feels Good!, Geese’s 3D Country, Depeche Mode’s Memento Mori, the self-titled debut from Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall’s The WAEVE, and Blur’s first album in eight years, The Ballad of Darren. Not only that, he worked with breakout newcomers The Last Dinner Party and Fat Dog.
Though much of Ford’s actual production work on these efforts took place over the prior two years, having all of them arrive within a six month span highlighted the producer’s versatility. Each are disparate in style, but all share crisp instrumentals, sticky melodies, and a widescreen flare. He’s also no stranger to incorporating left turns and journeying with these artists into unknown territory, as demonstrated by his expansive work on Arctic Monkeys’ last two LPs.
The role of a producer is not merely to press record; there are band dynamics, label and manager demands, and the pressures of repeated success at play. Each of Ford’s 2023 albums had added contextual challenges that make his resulting efforts all the more rewarding. For Ware’s That! Feels Good!, that meant creating something more effervescent, dynamic, and extroverted than any of her previous works — a grand re-entry as one of pop music’s premiere vocalists.
Over a video call, the ever-humble Ford tells Consequence that Ware is a “longtime friend,” having worked on each of her albums since her 2014 sophomore LP, Tough Love. With such strong rapport already, it would have been easy for them rehash the disco-centric themes of her last album, What’s Your Pleasure? Instead, both Ware and Ford wanted to turn the dial up even louder, embrace live performance, and make sure that her “killer” voice was heard.
“She’s found her voice kind of late in her career, which is a great thing to see,” says Ford.
Helping give that voice a fresh stage, Ford crafted the album predominately in his Hackney studio before recording the brass and string arrangements elsewhere. Leaning on the analog flair of live disco-pop, where you can feel the physical performance of these songs, was a difficult task for a producer who largely used digital production to create similar sonics in the past. But as a member of Simian Mobile Disco, he’s certainly familiar with the kind of live-wire, hedonistic air of late ’70s disco, Chic, and Studio 54 that characterizes That! Feels Good!.
“I’ve spent many years DJing and I’m a huge fan of old school disco, house, techno, and the roots of dance music as we know it. So for me, it was really quite an indulgence to be able to sort of lean back on those references,” Ford says.
Helping a mid-career artist find a new sound is one thing, but what about a reunited band with a complex 30-plus year history? Ford notes that Blur’s The Ballad of Darren isn’t just their first new album in eight years, but the first time they’ve recorded together in the same room in even longer.
Though there are some harmonious songs on Ballad, Ford was nervous that in-group friction made for “a risky project”: “There’s a lot of water under the bridge there and things that have happened in the past. And I really wasn’t sure how it would go.” Ford says his strategy was to keep everything “fluid” and make sure the energy and pace of the sessions were high. After a little bit of early tension, Ford claims the process became relaxed and enjoyable.
“Alex [James] and Dave [Rowntree] are great players and really slot into their roles. Obviously, Damon’s songwriting is amazing. But then something about the way Graham comes in at a sort of obtuse angle just turns it into Blur,” says Ford. “Some of the demos sounded a little Gorillaz-y — it was like, ‘Oh, is this gonna work for Blur?’ And then Graham comes in and makes some crazy noises on it… It’s the way the parts fit together, and it was wonderful to see, especially as a fan.”
He singles out one of the album’s standout singles, “St. Charles Square,” which sounds like quintessential Blur: “Initially, the demo had this slightly bossa nova-y beat — but Graham does this thing where he tunes one of the strings slightly differently and bends one of the notes into the chord. To me, that was ‘so Blur’ — and Graham knows it as well.”
Throughout last year, Ford stayed hard at work on another iconic group’s new album: Depeche Mode’s Memento Mori. The effort marked the band’s first without founding member Andy Fletcher, following his passing in 2022. Ford had worked on the band’s previous album, Spirit, but found that record “really difficult to make.” Heading into the Memento Mori sessions, he didn’t know what to expect — especially after Fletcher’s death just a month before recording. So, Ford and Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore and Dave Gahan decided to keep the team small and crafted the album in Gore’s Santa Barabra home.
“It became sort of a tender, bittersweet process. Martin and Dave have had their sort of issues in the past, but they were really connecting and bonding and writing together for the first time in years,” recalls Ford. “There was this sort of openness that I hadn’t experienced before — I guess a brush with mortality really makes you not sweat the small stuff.”
Ford reflects that his main memories of the process are the “long lunches” where the duo were “telling stories about Andy and reminiscing back to the Basildon days and I just felt very lucky to be there, to be fly on the wall to a moment in history.” That intimacy is heavily evident in Memento Mori, which features some of the most inspired Depeche Mode songs since the 1990s. As he did with Blur, Ford helped Depeche Mode find light in the darkness.
Much like navigating the dynamics of established acts, working with new artists requires flexibility. Ford is already in the studio with the next band on his production calendar, a group he’s never collaborated with before. Having heard the demos, he says he has “an idea in my head of how it should sound… how we should mic up the drums, what effects to use… but I know for a fact that four or five days in, all of those plans will have gone out the window.”
“Being a producer is about responding to the best thing that’s happening in that moment. Wherever the best energy is in that room or the best musical idea is, you move towards that,” Ford explains.
That philosophy was a key aspect in working on 3D Country, the sophomore album from Geese, who write songs like they’re crafting a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Ford may have been the veteran in the room, but he applauded and embraced the group’s Gen-Z eclecticism. “It was quite an eye-opener for me to a new generation. They’ve got really deep taste in music, they’ve grown up with Spotify and all that,” he shares, mentioning that the album “got reined it a little bit from where it was heading — not by me! But they were heading out into some weird little place of their own, which I had a lot of respect for.”
He similarly praises the versatility of another newer band, The Last Dinner Party, whose upcoming debut he produced, including their terrific first single, “Nothing Matters.” Ford and the band are a perfect match; their baroque, classical air recalls Florence + the Machine’s early output, the Tumblr-core nostalgia evokes AM-era Arctic Monkeys, and even the song’s drum beat feels inspired by Danielle Haim’s syncopated, hi-hat-forward fare.
Whomever James Ford finds on his production path, his zen message for them is the same: “We’re going to make a record — don’t panic. It’s going to be all right.” No matter an artist’s stature, their chosen genre, or the context surrounding their work, Ford has made good on that promise time and again. If 2023 proved anything, “all right” is a humble understatement.
