Like every Porridge Radio album before it, Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me amounts to raw, blistering catharsis. The songs are frontwoman Dana Margolin’s way of gnawing through the extremes of human emotion, which, on the new record, range from personal heartbreak to intense burnout following a period of heavy touring behind 2022’s Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky. But the feelings don’t follow a linear timeline: they tumble over themselves and into what Margolin calls “a dissociative fog,” blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Margolin was able to inhabit this liminal space by focusing on writing poems, which, in their transition to songs, remain either searingly literal in their descriptions of numbing pain and mundane beauty, or edge into surreal, symbolic territory. “Ten years is only the start, there’s no countdown, no limit, no end to the thoughts,” Margolin sings on opener ‘Anybody’. “And I finally found that my edges were sharp, new ways to be gentle, new ways to be hard.” Her bandmates allow her to give form to the endless stream of thoughts, ground her feverish vocals, and trace a line to the sky, where her yearning can amply be directed as she repeats, “Trying to reach you.”
We caught up with Porridge Radio’s Dana Margoling to talk about some of the inspirations behind Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me, including the hill outside the band’s house, Led Zeppelin IV, food, and more.
The hill outside Porridge Radio’s house
Is that the “swamp-colored hill” you reference in ‘I Get Lost’?
That is actually the exact swamp-colored hill! We recorded the album in Frome, which is in Somerset in the UK. We would get a house, and as a band we’d stay in the house – there were two different places we stayed. I wrote ‘I Get Lost’ the day before we recorded it in the studio. I was just sitting at the table one morning before anyone had woken up, having a coffee, just writing and looking out the window. And yeah, it came from that hill. It was a really beautiful hill, actually. It was at the back of this house we were staying in. We were kind of at the bottom of this valley, so there was a river and then a big hill. There were a few days of really heavy rain, and the river completely swelled and burst its banks. It completely changed how the landscape looked; it became a swamp, basically. It was amazing and so beautiful just to look out the window every morning and see this big, other thing. And then we’d go to the studio and be indoors for 12 hours, which was the opposite.
Do you feel like being around nature or having that kind of view opens up your writing in some way?
With writing, I think it helps to be able to see anything outside of what you’re necessarily used to or expect. A big part of this album was nature because, when we were touring so much, it was the only thing that felt grounding, that felt like I could hold onto, that remained constant throughout all the traveling we were doing and all the shows we were doing. It definitely was really inspiring, but I don’t think it was just the fact that it was nature, it was the fact that it was outside of what was actually really involved in. My head was so in the album-making process – to then just sit and stare out at the sky and at the hill was really soothing.
A lot of the album revolves around occupying or embodying spaces in between, an example of which could be that between inside a house or studio and the outside world. I’m thinking of the line “I am the place where the roofs meet the trees” in ‘Lavender, Raspberries’.
A lot of the album – in fact, not just the album, but how I inhabit my life and the world – I’m really tied to a sense of yearning. I think that yearning is present across all the songs I’ve ever written, especially on this album. But I think that yearning is almost a liminal space as well — it’s a place that’s not quite where you are and not quite where you want to be. You’re just in the middle of it. That line, “I am the place where the roofs meet the trees,” actually comes from a song I was really obsessed with and we listened to a lot on tour called ‘My Dog’s Eyes’ by Zammuto. It was actually a reference to that song, which ended up being something we kept coming back to over and over again across that year of touring. I really loved the imagery of the roofs and the trees. There is that marginal space element of those things not quite being inside or outside, not in the present or the future, not at the start or the end. Everything is on the way, moving, trying, reaching, grasping.
Misty mornings, the river flooding, and the gnomes we never saw
That one almost sounds like a Porridge Radio album title. It also seems to tie into the landscape you were just describing.
I guess it’s also tied to this liminality and this feeling of not quite being in any one place. A lot of this record was written in a dissociative fog – in a kind of heartbreak, depression, burnout from traveling so much, exhaustion. I think the things that saved me were magic, these weird unknown things, not quite understanding — leaning into the fog, the mystery, the confusion, and allowing for the uncertainty and terror of it all. Those misty mornings, looking up at that hill, the flooding, and the stories we made up and lived around – those were huge inspirations.
Looking at them now, are these elements that help you trace the emotional journey of the album as well, even if they remain mysterious?
Yeah, there were themes that kept recurring that I wasn’t aware of as they kept coming up. Looking at it in hindsight, I can see all the shapes and patterns that were made and all the things that were important, that made themselves known throughout the process, but that I didn’t realize until afterwards. All of these ideas, thoughts, and feelings did repeat themselves, and they make themselves known through these songs, but I don’t think I knew that was happening until after we’d finished recording.
Radiohead’s Kid A and In Rainbows, Led Zeppelin IV
Do you want to separate the Radiohead albums from Zeppelin, or is there something that ties them all together?
There is something that ties them all together. Which is that while we were recording in January and February of this year, I could only listen to Kid A. I listened to Kid A every single day, at least once, for about two months. So, when we got into the studio, I was just obsessed with Kid A. It was like the only musical reference point I had at that moment, and I couldn’t comprehend anything outside of that sound. But when we were calling out reference points in the van, our bassist, Dan [Hutchins], who was sitting next to me, shouted out In Rainbows. For me, it was Kid A; for him, it was In Rainbows. During the process of making the album, we were both thinking about those two albums every single day.
Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin IV became an important reference point because of the song ‘You Will Come Home’ on our record. Dom Monks, who produced the album, would keep talking about that song, and we would talk about that album and the way it’s produced. It kind of became a reference point for us musically, even though it’s quite removed and maybe a weird one for us to choose. [laughs] In the middle of recording, I went to a wedding. We had a full session that day, and then at about 9pm, Georgie [Stott] and I had to leave to go to this wedding that was the next day. But before we left, we were talking about Led Zeppelin IV, especially in the context of ‘You Will Come Home’, and I just put the album on really loud in the car and drove late at night back to London with Led Zeppelin IV blaring. And I realized that ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and ‘You Will Come Home’ are the same song.
It also made me think of ‘Wednesday’, with its kind of bluesy riff.
That’s funny. The thing is, with all these reference points, these were all things that were long after the songs were written. The songs were written about nine months before, except for ‘I Got Lost’, which was written in the studio. But I hadn’t even thought of ‘Wednesday’ in that context. The more live way of recording music – a big part of what we were trying to do is to honor the moment that we were in, and if you’re editing and overdubbing everything, you move away from that. So there was a really strong focus on not overdubbing much at all and keeping the original live takes of all the tracks of us playing together. I think that way of actually recording and producing meant that that kind of reference point, Led Zeppelin IV, was a helpful one.
Josh Cohen’s wedding
I know Josh Cohen is your manager. How did leaving the studio and going to the wedding affect the process?
I was really pissed off that I had to leave the studio. But Josh, my manager, is also one of my best friends. I’ve known him since we were teenagers; it’s been over 10 years of friendship and working together. I was obviously so happy and proud that he was getting married, but I was super pissed that I had to leave the studio. [laughs] Georgie, who plays keys in the band, is also really close to Josh, so we both had to leave in the middle of the recording process to go to his wedding. We even gave a speech together at the wedding. But we were in the studio like, “We’re making an album! We don’t have time to think about a fucking wedding!” And then we got there, and it was so beautiful. It was so lovely to celebrate our friend’s love and his getting married.
But also, I had to leave the studio twice in the span of about four days. The first time for the wedding, the second time for a funeral. They were both right in the middle of the recording process, but I really wanted and needed to be at both of them. It was a weird thing where, when you’re in the studio, you kind of shut down from the rest of the world. It kind of happens on tour as well. You’re in a liminal space, outside of reality, or outside the rest of your friends and families’ lives where they get to come home at the end of the day of work and get into their own bed and be with their own friends and family and partners. When you’re working as a band, your band becomes your family, and your whole life revolves around the place that you are, whether it’s the band, the venue, the studio. Generally, that means that you’re separated from the rest of your life.
But leaving for the wedding and the funeral meant that I had to remember what it was like to not be in the studio. It was really weird just being jolted out of this environment – being really hyper-focused, working 12-hour days, only thinking and talking about the record 24 hours a day – and then suddenly being at one of the most profound and important events in someone else’s life. You’re jerked out of your studio, and it’s like, Fuck, I’m suddenly back in the world, and the place I am is so intense, and then zooming straight back into the studio again. It was quite a weird experience.
You say it’s weird – do you feel like it’s also important or necessary to have those moments of reconnection?
I think it’s really important to reconnect with the real world and real people. And by “real people,” I mean people who aren’t in your band. [laughs] It was really important to me to be at both of those things. But when you’re creating something, it’s also really important to fully immerse yourself in that world and not step outside of it, to be fully immersed in your craft and your practice. Actually, I found that I couldn’t think about anything else for about six months leading up to the recording, and even after, I couldn’t think about anything else. Every waking thought was this album because that’s how in it I was. And the bit of it that’s at the very core of that process, which is being at the studio, and then having to leave – it was really disorienting and confusing. But it was also just a reminder that life keeps happening, it doesn’t really matter where you are or what you’re doing. You have to make time for it.
Sardines, potatoes, olive oil, roast chicken, tomatoes
There’s something grounding about including a list of foods here, which I’m guessing is also tied to the recording process?
It is. It’s also related to the time before we went into the recording studio. We had this rehearsal studio in Portslade, just outside of Brighton. It was in this kind of industrial estate, in a horrible old warehouse. But me and Georgie, who live in London, would drive down every week, and Sam and Dan, who were in Brighton, we would go and spend two full days in the studio, just writing and rehearsing, and then we’d sleep over at Sam’s house. We’d usually go out for fish and chips or make dinner together. We would make these big stews, usually; there was a lot of homeliness. We’d go back to the studio the next day, do another full day of work, and then me and Georgie would drive back to London. When were in the recording studio as well, we’d take turns and someone would make a big communal dinner. We ate so many potatoes and salads. Often, I’d just make a massive salad at the beginning of the day, and it would just be out for the rest of the day and everyone could eat it. It was all very communal. We did a big food shop together, we would cook for each other, we would eat together.
I think eating together – you’re sharing something that becomes part of your body, what you’re made of is what you eat. When you’re all eating the same food and cooking together, you’re also thinking together. You’re doing things in tandem. You’re aware of everybody else’s tastes, what everybody else can and wants to eat. By doing it communally, you’re taking everyone into account and you’re bearing everybody in mind. It’s very much a thing that families do that keeps you together and close — eating is the center of the home. No matter what I’m doing, it’s the thing that ties me to the people I love. We eat together, and that was just a big part of this album. And for us as a band, it always has been. If we’re on tour, we always find a Vietnamese restaurant because that’s the food that crosses over everyone’s dietary requirements and taste preferences.
Fatboy Slim’s cafe
Next to our rehearsal studio in Portslade, there’s this place called Hove Lagoon, just before you get to the beach. It’s a man-made lagoon where people do water sports, and there’s also a cafe that belongs to Fatboy Slim. I think it’s called Big Beach Cafe. There was nothing really around there, it was a bit dead other than a petrol station with some supermarket in it and that cafe. We’d often find ourselves going to the cafe, especially in the summer – we recorded the album in January, so when we started recording, it was maybe May, but by the time we finished, it was full, horrible winter in England, which is not very nice. But in the summer we would often go to the cafe and chill there in our breaks. It’s right by the beach, and it’s a really beautiful part of the beach.
The Simpsons
Are you a longtime fan or did you get into the show around that time?
I’m a longtime fan. It was like my favorite show when I was a kid. When we were having our sleepovers at Sam’s house, after we’d eaten, we’d often just chill and watch The Simpsons together. And a lot of times when we had breaks, everyone would go around and name their favorite moment from The Simpsons. It was kind of a bit we were doing, almost making a joke of how much we liked it. But then we would go home and look up the episodes that we’d been talking about that day and we would watch them in the evenings. [laughs] That was really fun. I think it’s one of the shows that we can all agree on because it’s easy to watch and we’ve all seen it a million times before. You know, we’ve been a band for about ten years, and we’ve been really good friends during that time. A lot of my memories hanging out with Sam, we would just watch The Simpsons. It reminds me of the coziness and homeliness of getting inside after a long day in the studio and watching TV with your friends, and everyone going, “Can we watch this one?” And then you do, and it’s great.
Listening to the album, as frantic and intense as it can be, I do come away from it feeling, if not a sense of homeliness, then a kind of comfort or relief in the way it resolves itself. Is that a goal for you when you’re constructing a record?
I don’t think I ever really have a goal when it comes to what I’m making. I’m really glad to hear that there’s a comforting element in the songs for you, I definitely get that. A lot of the album is working out some really hard knots and teasing out these really confusing, painful experiences, and at the end of it, what I have is just a lot of memories of spending time with my best friends, making music that I’m really proud of that I get to keep playing and share with people. There’s a feeling of connecting and being seen and allowing myself to be seen. It’s the most terrifying thing to share these ugly parts of myself that I don’t want people to see. But then I share them, and it feels like there is some kind of relief through that connection, and through that transformation as they get shared, as reflections of something really honest and true to me.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Porridge Radio’s Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me is out now via Secretly Canadian.
