Arctic Monkeys’ sixth studio album was a marked departure from the band’s earlier work
The Sheffield group have come a long way since their 2006 debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Subsequent releases toyed with retro sounds and studio experimentation, but Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino saw the band move into an entirely new space.
Five months after the release of the album, Arctic Monkeys have released a 12-minute behind-the-scenes documentary Warp Speed Chic, which documents the making of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
Filmmaker Ben Chappell directed the film, which features footage of Alex Turner behind the drum kit, studio sessions from the album’s recording in France, and arty scenes from an Arctic Monkeys concert.
The documentary was accompanied by news of a new song, ‘Anyways’, which will be the b-side to the single release of the album’s fourth track ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’. The single will be released next month on a 7″ vinyl.
Chappell, who also directed the video for ‘Four Out of Five’, said of the documentary: “After spending a year documenting Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino I wanted to try and pull it all together in a short film.
“I spent a few weeks with the band in France documenting the recording process with my 16mm camera in September 2017. At that point I was still only hearing bits and pieces of the tunes as they were being recorded. Nearly a year later, I was on stage with them in Lyon France, shooting some of those same tunes.
“When the film came back from the lab I put the live songs next to my shots of them recording and found it to be quite nice.
“With that as a starting point, I then used [producer] James Ford’s instrumental mixes of the album and I put an assortment of the images we created for this album overtop, giving a glimpse into the last year and the full progression of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.”
