When Dana Margolin started working on the fourth Porridge Radio album, there was something different in how the songwriter approached creativity.
“Almost all the songs started out as poems,” says Margolin of the work that became Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me (2024), “I wanted to challenge myself.” In songwriting, Dana argues, she had learnt that the writer can always hide behind the tricks of the music and well-worn techniques such as repetition. “In a poem, though,” says Dana, “you can’t hide.”
Recorded in the Somerset countryside in early 2024 by longtime Big Thief and Laura Marling engineer Dom Monks, Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me is Porridge Radio’s new album and first new music in two years. The UK band’s new album is a coming-of-age moment inspired by burnout, the music industry, heartbreak and the brutal collapse of significant relationships and – crucially – Dana’s own increasing immersion in her craft as an artist.
Across the album, particularly on the devastating A Hole In the Ground and God Of Everything Else, Dana’s ruthlessly self-interrogating writing style is matched by some of the band’s most affecting music to date, patiently building and tragically intense.
