Producer James Ellis Ford recorded new album during cancer treatment

Producer James Ellis Ford made his new album, Lost In Another World, from a hospital room during treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, writing and recording the whole record in a couple of weeks once his energy began to return between rounds of chemotherapy. He described being "isolated in a white room in a hospital, not able to really see anybody" during that stretch, before finding the creative spark to start again.

Ford, known for producing records by Gorillaz and Arctic Monkeys as well as his own solo work, learned he had the disease around Christmas Eve of 2024, after weeks of feeling run down that he initially wrote off as burnout. Treatment included chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant; he told NPR he is technically at a higher risk of relapse now that his immune system has reset, but otherwise feels fine.

The album's texture came from what was in the room: a microphone, a laptop and a small keyboard his wife brought in. Its songs trace that stretch directly, from "Did You Ever Want To Go To Your Own Funeral?" to "Parallel Dimension," a track he said was partly an attempt to keep himself laughing rather than dwell on the situation.

One song, "Here Today," comes from a specific afternoon between his first and second rounds of chemo, when he was allowed a day out and drove with his wife and son to the countryside to sit beneath a tree in an open field. "It was so simple but so profound and overwhelming to me at the time," he said.

Ford's album follows earlier reporting on the same recovery: a documentary has already tracked the record's making, and Ford previewed the project with the single "The Ever After" earlier this month. Lost In Another World is out now, joining the rest of the week's electronic arrivals on the release calendar.