Having just lived it, I'm sure that even thinking about the last 12
months inspires both nausea and a slow, crawling fear in equal parts. So I'll be
brief.
2020 established itself as the year of no hugs,
broken tours and buyers remorse over all the unnecessary toilet roll
you bought. It proved you should never shop when you're hungry or in a
panic state. You'll only end up with food you didn't really need and an
abundance of quilted, aloe vera infused "bathroom
materials".
The picture was a screenshot of Tom, Justin, Elliott and Blanck Mass taking part in a cam conference of some description, and it had the single word caption "SCHEMING" written on it. The immediate assumption could be that they were planning album 7, and that the majority of the same personnel that created VI OLENCE would be reuniting for another long player. If that was true, would it also include a return visit for Leo Abrahams? If so, this would be another first for Editors in that they would be working on back-to-back records with the same creative team. Remember that this almost happened with The Weight of Your Love where Flood, who had overseen the In This Light... album, was supposed to be installed at the desk for those E4 sessions. Disintegration of interpersonal relationships, and very nearly the entire band, saw to it that this wouldn't be the eventual outcome.
As I said in a post elsewhere, it would be a lot easier to put a record together with the technology available now. It could all be done at home remotely and digitally passed around between the people involved to be assembled, jigsaw style. Hell, maybe they're at that stage where the material is already far enough along to be handed over to Blanck Mass for his own input ? I can only contemplate the subject matter of those tunes if Tom has his social antennae active right now. Where VI OLENCE was shaped in part by feelings of media bombardment and the attacking nature of the 24 hour news cycle, it's something that's been amplified to ridiculous levels by corona virus. Flip on your outlet of choice and that's all there is. It's everywhere, and it's negatively relentless. So if you think about it, taking the themes of E6 further with everyone that made it actually makes total sense. The chaos that fuelled it has only been amplified.
For every argument, there's usually a counter somewhere and this one could be that if they were in fact working with Blanck Mass again on an album, they'd be repeating themselves. It's something they've said on occasion that they don't want to do, so there's that to consider. Or the very act of repeating themselves is in itself breaking a rule, and therefore in doing so they're breaking new ground? You could spend hours twisting yourself into as yet unseen shapes when the reality is E7 will probably be a collection of 6 minute dog-related ballads devoted to River. Something to think about while we contemplate our position out here in the ongoing apocalypse.
