The first two Gloaming albums were simple affairs, the band gathering in a studio to record songs they had worked out while playing live.This time was different. Bartlett says only three of the 10 songs had been road-tested. So instead of The Gloaming playing as a quintet, Bartlett and Ó Lionáird got together in New York a handful of times to work out the songs, the assembled the band for three days in Bartlett's Manhattan studio - where he shares space with Nico Muhly and Sufjan Stevens - to lay down the bulk of the record, before Bartlett spent a month knitting it together. But instead of losing spontaneity, The Gloaming gained something new from the process. "Rather than having these big chunks of music we knew had a particular shape and were set in stone, I was able to make more precise decisions about where the emotional turns happen and showcase Martin and Caoimhín in different ways to where it's material we've all played together, so they have both developed exactly what they are going to do before we record. Whereas with this, I could think, 'Now I'm going to get just Caoimhín playing this tune and I can build up around it.' There's a little more depth and specificity this time around."