Like many a young man in love, Joseph Mount followed his heart—and his girlfriend—to Paris. The Devon-born musician has since settled into life in the City of Light, raising his son there and hobnobbing with the likes of fellow English transplant Jarvis Cocker. So, how is Mount’s French?

“It’s quite good,” he says. “I did a proper course when I realized I was definitely living there. I was like, ‘Shit, I should really speak the language.’ But you learn it all, and you suddenly go on tour in places where they speak Spanish or German, you know?”

Indeed, when the Straight connects with Mount, he’s in Spain. Specifically, he’s in Barcelona, where he’s performing as part of the Primavera Sound festival alongside Metronomy bandmates Oscar Cash (keys, sax, vocals), Anna Prior (drums, vocals), and Gbenga Adelekan (vocals, guitar).

Mount remains the quartet’s sole songwriter, but he gives Metronomy’s other members much of the credit for how the band’s latest album, Love Letters, turned out. “People do put a lot of emphasis on the idea of collaboration in writing, and in fact it’s playing together where I think actual collaboration goes on, in that sense,” he says. “With this record, pretty much all of the tracks were, in essence, recorded live. So, you know, you spend a lot of time rehearsing, and then recording and getting the right take, and adjusting things. It was definitely the most collaborative thing that we’ve done, the four of us.”

Metronomy recorded Love Letters at Toe Rag Studios, an all-analogue facility in the London borough of Hackney that has also hosted acts such as the White Stripes and Tame Impala. Mount is proud of the fact that the album was made in a totally old-school way rather than being assembled on a computer. The result is a truly organic-sounding LP, whether Mount and company are banging their way through a piano-powered romp like the title track, moody guitar pop like “Month of Sundays”, or percolating synth excursions like the fun-on-the-Autobahn instrumental “Boy Racers”.

“I wanted to make a record in the same kind of recording studio that they used in the ’60s,” Mount says. “And that’s such a vague thing—at the beginning of the ’60s the music was completely different to what it was at the end of the ’60s—but generally, I wanted to make a record in that sort of classic way. I wanted it to have a feel, or a kind of aesthetic, of that time, but then I think if you listen to it, there are bits that remind me of ’90s guitar music, and bits that are like Kraftwerk as well. One part of it takes its cues from that period, but I think it’s a record that could only be made in 2014, because it’s when I’m alive, you know what I mean?”

Nonetheless, a sense of wanting to recapture something inherently intangible permeates Love Letters, from its vintage sonics to the lyrics of songs such as “Monstrous”, on which Mount sings, “Hold on tight to everything you care about/Hopelessly it’s all I dream about.”

“The things that got me excited about being in music, and the things that I always kind of dreamt about happening when I became a musician, they’re all things which now are suffering, like fan clubs,” he says. “And people don’t buy as many records. Part of me is still trying to live out this fantasy, but then also you feel like if you go and take the time to make a record like that, and you do it in a willfully difficult way, then maybe people will take the time to buy it, and maybe people will take the time to listen to it. I did it for a number of reasons, and one was to learn about how to record like that. But I do feel like if you make life a little bit harder for yourself, then maybe people will appreciate what you’ve done.”

Metronomy plays Fortune Sound Club on Tuesday (June 10).