Track By Track: Ed Tullett on his debut album Fiancé with exclusive stream

Fiancé deftly blends graceful, folk-based song structures with towering electronics and soaring falsetto vocals, culminating in darkly majestic soundscapes as epic and expansive as they are intimate. The album was preceded by Tullett and Novo Amor’s spectral collaborative single “Faux” and Tullett’s quietly electrifying “Ply”.

Listen to Fiancé below and check out Tullet's exclusive Track By Track guide.

Irredeemer

I had the first half of this song for a while, originally called "Cloy", but always wanted to have something big to finish it. I wrote the end with the three-part harmony and the 'irredeemer...' refrain up in Cardiff months later whilst recording with Novo Amor. It just seemed to fit perfectly. The 'build me on yourself' lyric is kind of 'make me what you want me to be', and the rest of the song basically says that person isn't perfect and how they don't have the justification to judge/wish change from any higher ground anyway.

Malignant

This was the first song I finished that set the sound for the rest of the record. It has a really tense, almost evil energy to it. I think it gave me license to use the huge synths that crop up across the rest of the album whilst still focusing on harmony and melody/lyric writing. The song itself is about mortality and disease, and the apparent luck that comes along with them - how it's not always fair, how they can trick you and make you paranoid etc. The bridge sums that up - "I know it cannot tier itself, bliss, a shallow tease in mouth, oh, the narrow keel of health, drank a dapper fear, aimed out".

Posturer

Certainly the most folk-influenced song on the record, I guess due to the prominent acoustic guitar. I recorded all of the acoustic guitar at Ali (Novo Amor)'s studio using a mic we borrowed to do the vocals on "Faux", our collaborative single from 2014. There's a three-part harmony for the entire song, but the way the phrases came together, both lyrically and melodically, it just seemed to work that way. Probably pretty hard to play this song in the same way live!

Canyine

One of my favourite songs lyrically and to sing live - it explores love and sexuality in its varying forms and how that manifests itself in certain situations. I'll often write in different perspectives from my own, other headspaces, and this song is a definite example of that. Its title is a fairly crude and silly kind of portmanteau of canyon and canine - one representing sexual love and the other platonic.

Saint

After writing "Malignant" I really wanted to do another song with massive walls of synths. I just kept layering stuff until it sounded as huge as possible - those semitone bends and the crazy solo at the end might be a little over the top to some, but I love them. It goes from the highest of my falsetto range to the lowest and is really fun to play live.

Kadabre

I had the little plucked string loop for a while, and once I got into the right headspace after writing "Malignant" I blended it with the acoustic. I think "Kadabre" was me finally realising 'it doesn't really matter what genre this is, just do whatever sounds good'. The record is cohesive and has its own sound, but it's hard to compare directly to many peers, and that's what I love about it. It took me so long to find that freedom to write whatever came and not focus on one particular style or sound. That's why the artwork fits - at first glance it might seem messy or warped, but in detail it's beautiful.

Ply

The title comes from a JRPG videogame I used to love called Golden Sun - "Ply" was the name of the healing spell in the game. When that final synth wave comes in it just felt cleansing. It cascades into this blanket of harmony - it's a very simple song, just three different melodies over the same chords, but the dynamics are what make it what it is. I love going from quiet to loud and "Ply" is the best example of that on the record.

Are You Real

"Are You Real" is a slight departure from the rest of the album - it has a more constant, albeit subtle, beat to it and percussive guitar. I wanted to see if I could do something that had a more consistent weight to it - so much of what I write is end-heavy - and whilst it does still have a climactic final part I love the sense of rhythm it has without being imposing. The song is influenced by paranoia/anxiety; 'I will conjure chests' signifying misplaced jealousy.

Ivory

This song was born out of just adlibbing melodies over chord loops on the same soft synth. It's a weird song structure - it's hard to make out what the chorus is. I actually had half a different song to end the record, but couldn't find a final part for it - that's when I wrote "Ivory". It also used to end before the synths come back in, but it felt empty without it. It was hard to play live at first as the final part has the bar starting a beat after it feels like it should - I've got the hang of it now though!

Fiancé is slated for release via Monotreme Records on 19 February.

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