And so begins our pastoral period.

Having recovered from the maelstrom of “This is Hardcore” we took some time out to get back to nature, and tried to go back to basics. We wrote an awful lot of songs between then and the release of the next album “We Love Life”. Our first tentative steps back into the public eye were three shows performed behind a large Venetian blind in Summer 1999 that previewed a gentler, acoustic sound and a few new tunes (including “Sunrise” under its working title of “Rave Sense”). Then it took us two years to get a record together, by which time we had Scott Walker as producer.

Even before it was released, “Sunrise” quickly established itself as a live favourite at Pulp concerts, and it was reported at the time that the band turned down a huge offer from a global soft drinks corporation to license it for a commercial. It was the band’s first choice as a single but it seemed a bit too challenging to go with such a long song, half of which was instrumental. The record company were not very keen either, so we ended up with another double A-side featuring the track that they were pushing for.

“The Trees” had the working title of “Otley” after the film whose soundtrack the loop was lifted from. (In the first draft of the lyrics, this song was called “The Sun”.) With director @philharderfilms, we made a video partially inspired by techniques used in Norman McLaren’s 1968 dance film “Pas de deux”. You can watch ours on YouTube and discover the source at https://www.nfb.ca/film/pas_de_deux_en/

Remixes of “The Trees” were furnished by @imonstermusic and Lovejoy. Fat Truckers and @allseeingiofficial were on hand to reimagine “Sunrise”.

“The Trees / Sunrise” was released across two CDs and one 12” single on 8 October 2001, with the “We Love Life” LP following a few weeks later.