''Studio Zoo'' is the fourth studio album by British singer-songwriter

Newton Faulkner Sam Newton Battenberg Faulkner (born 11 January 1985) is an English singer-songwriter and musician from Reigate, Surrey. He is known for his percussive style of guitar playing. In 2007 Faulkner's debut studio album ''Hand Built by Robots'' was ce ...

, and the first album he has produced himself. Its recording, which took place in June and July 2013 at Faulkner's home, was streamed live online. The album was released on 26 August 2013.

Recording

The recording of ''Studio Zoo'' was being streamed live online, 24/7 for 5 weeks from 11 June 2013. His home studio in East London was set up with 4 cameras, to allow fans to follow every detail of recording the album – with no producer or engineer, only Faulkner and a few guests, such as ''

The X Factor ''The X Factor'' is a television music competition franchise created by British producer Simon Cowell and his company Syco Entertainment. It originated in the United Kingdom, where it was devised as a replacement for ''Pop Idol'' (2001–2003 ...

Janet Devlin Janet Maureen Aoife Devlin (born 12 November 1994) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, who competed in the eighth series of ''The X Factor'' in 2011, where she finished in fifth place. Devlin's debut album was released in October 2012 via P ...

and Ted Dwane (of

Mumford & Sons Mumford & Sons is a British folk rock band formed in London in 2007. The band currently consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass), and Ben Lovett (vocals, key ...

). Fans were also able to follow regular updates on the social networks, such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. The campaign used the hashtag #StudioZoo which allowed users tweets to play sounds in Faulkner's house. The campaign concluded in a party at Faulkner's house with a set jungle. There was a toy jeep which would drive forward every time someone tweeted #StudioZoo. The #StudioZoo campaign was created and ran by Powster. "I am as excited as I am terrified by the prospect of having a house full of cameras film me while trying to record an album. The entire recording process will be streamed live and nothing has been recorded in advance - apart from some particularly good hand claps recorded in Paris. The album will be made before your very eyes, no tricks, no producer and no engineer, just me, a guitar and a few surprise guests," said Faulkner. "With the whole album I gave myself relatively strict rules. The main criticism I’ve had in the past has been that my recordings have been overly layered and polished. So as this is the first album I’ve ever produced myself, I aimed to make sure this wasn’t the case. I limited myself to one guitar part per track, which meant I pushed my playing considerably further than ever before. I also tried to harmonise with myself as little as possible vocally," he said in an interview with ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''. "So that the main guitar part and lead vocal had to carry every track the way it does when I play live. I did allow myself to get in great players and singers to add more light and shade. Andreya Trianna and Janet Devlin both did awesome harmonies and guitar-wise I was joined by some of best acoustic guitarists in the world, Thomas Leeb and Nick Harper. Ted Dwane from Mumford and Sons played some double bass and India Borne, who plays cello and bunch of stuff for Ben Howard, popped in too. I was very lucky."

Promotion

The lead single to promote the album, "Losing Ground", was released on 8 September 2013. Faulkner said that the song "is about battling on even when you know you're on the back foot. You go through ups and downs and it's about being in a down but being ok with it, because you know there must be an up on the way... hopefully." A music video for the song, created by London-based motion graphics company Powster, was released onto

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

on 21 August 2013.

Reception

Critical reception

Caroline Sullivan of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the album three out of five stars, and commented that Faulkner, whose calling card is laidback amiability, should start playing against type and "rather than swaddling every song in layers of delicately picked guitar, he should have found his inner wildebeest and let it roar." She added that he seems to be apologising for his very existence, and "had he stopped burying the emotions under passive-aggressive sweetness and let his voice ratchet up a few notches, this could have been an interesting album."

Commercial performance

Commercially, ''Studio Zoo'' has been less successful than Falkner's previous albums. On the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, it debuted at number 10, and peaked at number 51 on the

Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA). The charts were previously compiled on behalf of IRMA by Chart-Track, and have been compiled by the ...

Track listing

Writing credits from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

Personnel

;Musicians *

–

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, guitarrón,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

guzheng The zheng () or gu zheng (), is a Chinese plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25, or 26 strings, is long, and is tuned in a major pentatonic scale. It has a large, resonant soundboard made from ''Paulownia'' wood. Other co ...

Nick Harper Nick Harper (born 22 June 1965) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is the son of English folk musician Roy Harper. Early life Harper was born in London, England, to the folk singer-songwriter Roy Harper. Nick tells of how he ...

– guitar,

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

Thomas Leeb Thomas Leeb (born 14 September 1977 in Klagenfurt, Austria) is an Austrian fingerstyle guitarist. Biography Thomas Leeb grew up in the small Austrian mountain village Turracher Höhe, Carinthia, as the youngest of four children of a hotel-ow ...

– guitar * India Bourne –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

Ted Dwane Ted Dwane (born Edward James Milton Dwane, 15 August 1984) is a British musician and photographer, best known for being the bassist of the Grammy Award-winning British folk rock band Mumford & Sons. Before this he was the bassist in experimental ...

–

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

, backing vocals * Toby Faulkner – backing vocals *

Andreya Triana Andreya Triana is a British singer and songwriter, ''Red Bull Music Academy'' alumna and MOBO nominated artist hailing from South East London, Her debut album, '' Lost Where I Belong'' released in September 2010 on London based record label Nin ...

– backing vocals *

– backing vocals * Sam Brookes – backing vocals * Dan Dare – backing vocals * Random Impulse – backing vocals * Ryan Keen – backing vocals * Nikki Lamborn – backing vocals * Anna Baines – backing vocals ;Technical personnel *

–

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

* Andy Parker – mixing (tracks 1, 4, 7, 9, 11–13) * Ben Phillips – mixing (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10) * John Davis – mastering * Emily Coxhead –

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2013 albums Newton Faulkner albums