 Apart from a change in musical style , the band changed the way they recorded . " It was the first time we sort of jammed , " Coxon revealed . " We 've never really jammed before . We 've been quite white @-@ <unk> , overall about recording , like in a laboratory . Yeah , we did actually feel our way through just playing whatever came to our minds and editing , which was really exciting . " " We just played together for two weeks in a way we hadn 't done since 1991 , " Dave recalls . " We wanted to purify the sound , to not have anything there not played by us . We reasoned that if we made small changes at the input end , we could effect large changes in the output . " According to producer Stephen Street , " Blur had decided that commercial pressures and writing hit singles wasn 't going to be the main consideration any more . The mood in the studio was very different to when I 'd first worked with them . " " In the studio , once we got past those first few days , where I felt everyone was treading on eggshells , there was a great atmosphere . I think it was because they didn 't want to be competing with anyone on this record , they wanted to make a record that would help keep the band together . " Street had acquired a new piece of hardware , described as " <unk> @-@ ish to talk about but really useful " which enabled him to sample loops and otherwise cut @-@ and @-@ paste entire sections of the band 's jam sessions . 
