Albert Hammond Jr. (The Strokes) Melodies on Hiatus

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Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. crafted his fifth solo album Melodies on Hiatus in a most experimental style. Albert teamed up with his writing partner, Canadian songwriter, and poet Simon Wilcox (whom he never met during the process) and had lengthy conversations via the telephone; Simon would jot down notes from Albert's stream of consciousness, and draft the lyrics on her typewriter, and drop them into his letterbox. Albert then added the lyrics to the melodies he had already crafted. The songwriting process became a long distant "anonymous love affair of ideas & lyrics."

The 19-track collection covers themes of childhood, surviving adolescence, adulthood, vulnerability, fame, relationship with self and others, and is Albert's "deconstructed broken down ego reaction" to 2018's Francis Trouble. The album also features songs with GoldLink, Matt Helders (of the Arctic Monkeys), Steve Stevens and Rainsford, and was mixed by Tony Hoffer (known for his work with Beck, Air, M83, The Kooks, Fitz and the Tantrums, Metric, Chromeo) and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters (Paramore, Spoon, Tame Impala, Jimmy Eat World, Peanut Butter Wolfe).

The album cover art is a license of Wassily Kandinsky's famous painting "Seven Circles," which is an abstract and spiritual expression of color and shape on canvas, "the fusion of the two greatest opposites, that of the concentric and of the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. This painting is subjective and relies on the infinite possibilities of interpretation of the circle to create a sense of spiritual and emotional harmony for the viewer" much like the songs on this record.