Longtime listeners of Phillips may not have known about that side of his musical personality, but it's been apart of him for as long as he can remember.

"I think the second CD that ever made it to our house — my dad won a CD player in a contest — he bought the first Dire Straits album and So by Peter Gabriel and that just totally changed my world," said Phillips. "That and Songs From the Big Chair by Tears for Fears and the Talk Talk records, especially the late ones are just these insane, beautiful-sounding records. I could go on and on — Bjork's records and Radiohead's records — records that really use the studio as an instrument."

With a theme in hand and a willingness to try making a record in a new way, Phillips and Askew dug in.

"We had a blast," said Phillips. "It's so fun to go in and use these tools. Even if you're not that good and your drummer can't play in time and your singer can't sing in tune there's all these amazing studio tools right now that can make it some idea of perfect and can fix everything for you.

"It's so easy to fake it now and so I've stayed away from those tools but at the same time they're so fun to play with. If you're using them to amuse yourself instead of fix yourself, they're really fun. I kind of got over some of my phobia of overproducing and just had a lot of fun."

The idea of having fun making records was something Phillips needed. The eight years since his solo debut have been turbulent from a professional perspective. He's signed with labels and seen them absorbed. He's signed with labels and been dropped. He's tried handling almost everything as a one-man company. All of those aspects of working as a musician outside of actually making music were overshadowing what matters most to him.

"I can't afford to let it ruin music for me so I've mostly been making steps to enjoy music again and let the business be the business."

That perspective and the new approach seems to have been a revelation and a breakthrough for him.