At Least We Got to Sit on the Ground, Pt. 1 & 2

'At Least We Got To Sit On The Ground, Parts I. & II.' is the second single from Phil Smith's debut record, Tagebuch.

In 2013, Phil left his friends and his job in London to become a world-renowned techno producer in Berlin. As it transpired, he ended up spending all his money in one summer and then taking on a variety of freelance gigs and "mini-jobs" (which included doing things like proofreading Tweets for BMW).

Meanwhile, he made features for BBC Radio and wrote music and presented a monthly NTS show, the excellent Jazz Dis-junction. The radio pieces explored poetry. Phil spent his time recording sounds and interviews and making radio pieces - often about poetry and sometimes involving the German language. He worked in the Malena Bar and learned Kneipedeutsch. The lovely owners, Fabi and Slavi, lent him their piano when the place closed down.

At some point life settled into a routine of playing piano alone in the kitchen of an old flat in Neukölln. He moved in with an artist, Natascha, who spent her evenings drawing the universe in black and white pen on a huge piece of paper on the floor. He made radio pieces about the people he encountered, and the ideas that he found interesting or challenging. He started recording everything (conversations, interviews, sounds, ideas for songs).

He made friends and went to Heiner's bar where it was always 02.00am. With Mike, he DJ'd jazz and folk and weird music (with much high-fiving and gratuitous use of the crossfade), and when it got to 04.00am they'd play their own tracks to the three people who were still in there, somewhere in the smoke.

Most days Phil would wake up and sit at the piano in the kitchen while the coffee was percolating. Sometimes his findings would be recorded - little diary entries that eventually amassed. He arranged some tunes, friends and musicians added lines and layers. They exist in various demo versions.

The album is a collection of musical journal entries: the sounds of trains and birds and bars; little internal hymns and loops; improvised doodlings while the coffee boils; playing with the internal / external (washing up, the neighbour's singing and birds entering through the open window, snow melting on the ledge, making musical thuds, in January); the slippage between inside and outside.

During the pandemic, and back in the UK, Phil began working with Zac (a multi-instrumentalist and producer based in London) who helped transform the sketches and half-finished tracks into finished pieces. Phil feels really indebted to Zac and to Kit Records, for the collaborative way in which the album has taken shape - and the chance to make it.