The Cranberries 2003 recording sessions

From February to May 2003, Irish band The Cranberries recorded material intended for a 2004 follow-up to the band's fifth album, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001). This material remains unreleased as the band decided to pursue personal projects and go into hiatus in September 2003. In 2011, The Cranberries entered back into studio to record a new album, putting aside the 2003 recordings.

The Creative Process

In mid-2002, The Cranberries expressed their intention to record a new album after the “Best of” Tour, in a different manner. The wish to “create a new sound” and “be more experimental” was expressed in numerous interviews and band’s messages on their former cranberries.ie website. “We also have been discussing our next record a lot lately and everyone is of the opinion that if we record in the normal way then it’s going to be very un-exciting and stale so we have decided that Dolores and Noel will go into the studio […] and play around with some ideas […]. We want to do something that really challenges us and push ourselves into unchartered territory,” told drummer Fergal Lawler in October 2002. For the previous albums’ recording sessions, the band normally went into studio with the finished songs.

The Cranberries opted for a more experimental sound with electronic elements. “I had an idea to take the songs in a different direction. […] For a long while I'd been listening to people like Beck and Moby and wondering how to incorporate the electronic side of things into my own writing. We'd done the guitar-drums line-up on five albums and it was time to introduce something else,” recalled guitarist Noel Hogan, talking about the 2003 Cranberries recording session and his work for the Mono Band album.

In a December 2002 statement by the band’s spokeperson, The Cranberries also expressed “their desire to change their approach to songwriting, and this could see them writing separately, initially”. This statement was released after a misinterpretation of lead vocalist Dolores O’Riordan intentions to pursue a solo career, during an interview with HotPress magazine.

The Recording Sessions

At the end of February 2003, The Cranberries joined with producer Stephen Street for a 10-day recording session in now-closed Olympic Studios (London), after two months of songwriting. The band went back into studio in mid-March 2003 to pursue their recording work, which was describe by Fergal as “quite different from anything we have done before but still recognisable as The Cranberries”. They continued working on their new material in April and May 2003.

During their 2003 recording sessions, The Cranberries hired the services of programmer Matt Vaughan, a first experience for the band. Talking about two tracks he worked on with Vaughan, Noel Hogan said: “They sounded very different from anything The Cranberries had done before and I was really excited about the potential direction in which the band could go”. O’Riordan and Hogan subsequently worked with Vaughan again on their respective solo projects.

Two songs created during these sessions were played by the band for the first time in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on May 29th 2003. While “Astral Projection” was describe as “a dreamy rock song”, “In it Together” – which had just been finished that day – was more “the same type of atmosphere as Stars”. These two songs were played again during the band’s mini tour that summer.

O’Riordan explained in an interview at Italian TV station La7 that the band was very selective about the songs they would retain for the 2004 album. “Even if we write 4 songs, we'll throw 3 of them away and we'll choose 1. We've got to be very selective to be sure that the next album is really good.”

In July 2003, the cranberries.ie website indicated that the band was offered several songs by electronic music songwriter Moby. They decided not the retain the Moby’s material because it was not “right for the band”.

It is unclear how many songs were actually recorded during the 2003 sessions. However, 7 songs were already recorded in March. Amongst the titles the band worked on from February to May, “Astral Projection”, “Raining in My Heart”, “In It Together”, “Someday” and "The Fall". While first four were subsequently re-recorded in 2011 for Roses, only "Raining in My Heart" and "Astral Projection" made the final cut of the 2012-scheduled comeback album.

It also unclear if some of the 2003 material that Dolores and Noel worked on separately and which was intended for the next Cranberries record ended up on their subsequent solo projects.

Hiatus and Roses Recording Sessions

On September 17, 2003, The Cranberries announced their intention to take a two-year break – which was later extended indefinitely – to take some time off and pursue solo projects.

During that time period, O’Riordan released two solo albums Are You Listening? in 2007 and No Baggage in 2009. She also collaborated on different music project with several artists, amongst them Zucchero Fornaciari, Jam & Spoon and Angelo Badalamenti.

As for Hogan, he released a collaboration album with several vocalists under the name Mono Band in 2005. With this album, he pursued his experimental work he had started with the Cranberries 2003 recordings. Two year later, Hogan formed a new group, Arkitekt, with one of Mono Band’s vocalist Richard Walters and released two EPs.

In 2008, a rumor indicated that The Cranberries intended to release the material they recorded in 2003. The project never materialized.

In late 2009 the band reunited after a six-year hiatus. They worked on 19 tracks for a new album entitled Roses, with producer Stephen Street between April and June 2011. Some of the 2003 tracks were then re-recorded.