40 Watt Sun

40 Watt Sun is the musical project of singer, guitarist and songwriter Patrick Walker, founded in early 2009 following the dissolution of his previous band, Warning, one of the most important, highly regarded and influential bands to emerge from the ‘90s doom metal scene.

The music of 40 Watt Sun is characterised by spare and deliberate arrangements, down-tempo rhythms, and Patrick Walker’s poignant and idiosyncratic vocals and introspective, often darkly-confessional lyrics. Hank Shteamer of Rolling Stone magazine has described the band’s music as “a poetic, gradually unfolding dirge rock”.

For Little Weight (2024), Walker was determined to simplify the record-making process and recapture more of the rawness and spontaneity of the band’s earliest recordings. Setting aside a designated amount of time, under specific - often isolated - conditions, the crafting of the songs that make up Little Weight took place.

The initial writing sessions were a solitary endeavour. Walker rented a remote cottage on the Cornwall coast, shutting himself away. Days took on a familiar rhythm: long walks on deserted beaches and coastal paths early each morning, followed by intensive writing sessions throughout the days, before retiring each evening to read by the fire in a nearby pub. During this three-week period, he wrote each of the songs that now form Little Weight.

The next step was to fly to Gottland, Sweden, where he would unite with drummer and long-time collaborator Andrew Prestige to further work on the musical arrangements and record basic demos. Once again, the secluded location lended itself to a focussed and swift creative process.  The resulting demo recordings were then shared with bass player Roland Scriver, before all three convened back in the UK, retreating to a house in the Peak District to rehearse and refine the songs.

This final location also afforded a distraction-free period of time to focus before the trio entered Holy Mountain Studios in London to record in December 2023. Engineering and mixing was undertaken by Chris Fullard (Sunn O))); IDLES; Ulver), who was assisted by Stanley Gravett, before Adam Gonsalves mastered the tracks in Portland, Oregon. The album's cover art is by Tekla Vály.

This pre-planned series of retreats provided the space and opportunities to focus, within which Walker and his collaborators were able to do their best work. Designated time to work without distraction allowed them absolute freedom to create, whilst deadlines added to the urgency of the final recordings.

Commenting on the writing process Walker says: “The conditions I created to make this record - without too much extraneous, unnecessary back and forth - means that what we recorded here have an added nearness to the first emotions that I first wanted to express and which inspired me to sit down to write; things often lost over time and usually difficult to recapture.” Whilst he remains unwilling to be drawn to discussing the specifics of his songs, 40 Watt Sun has once again produced a collection of vignettes that are steeped in poetic beauty, longing, love, and melancholy nostalgia.