James Ellis Ford announces new album for Domino recorded during cancer treatment, shares first single

The producer and multi-instrumentalist – known for studio work with Arctic Monkeys, Blur and Depeche Mode, and as one half of Simian Mobile Disco – crafted the album on a laptop at Barts hospital in early 2025, between punishing rounds of treatment. The first single, “Overtones”, is available now.

Ford received a diagnosis of AML, an aggressive blood cancer with a 30% survival rate, and was quickly moved onto a ward. During his second round of chemo, he turned to building tracks with a cheap microphone and a virtual studio. When his wife, Sereen, brought in a fold-away IKEA bedside table and some synthesizers, the sketches grew into fully formed songs, with hospital staff often taking his blood pressure mid-vocal take.

“There was no filter. I just sang the first thing that came into my head into the laptop,” Ford says of the process. The album became a form of diary-keeping, a way to navigate the existential weight of the diagnosis – and, unexpectedly, a source of uplift. “It was a pep talk; I was telling myself I was going to be OK. It was one way of dealing with the existential dread I felt. It gave me the ammunition to fight the experience and was a distraction from it.”

That defiant spirit runs through Lost In Another World. Ford credits the stillness of the cancer ward for the record’s serene, often cosmic tone. “They are very, very still, you can end up feeling like you’re on a space voyage.” Even at its most psychedelic, however, the lyrics tether the music to an earthbound reality. On one track, he sings: “Now I’m trusting in the process / But it really fucking hurts / And I’m not sure this poison / Isn’t just making it worse.”

Despite the temptation to keep refining the recordings once he returned home, Ford chose to leave them untouched. “The album is like a photograph. A time capsule.”

Ford will play the album live at Green Man Festival in Wales on 22 August, followed by a London headline show at the Horse Hospital on 17 September.

Lost In Another World tracklist

“Overtones”
“People Just Don’t Know”
“‘Til Our Days Are Gone”
“Here Today”
“Parallel Dimension”
“Silver Lining”
“I Believe In You”
“This Too Shall Pass”
“Homesick For Another World”
“The Ever After”
“Did You Ever Want To Go To Your Own Funeral?”
“This Will All Be A Memory Soon”