Feeder and Gil Norton recorded the bulk of "Pushing the Senses" in 2004 at Abbey Road Studios, London, England. Ken Nelson recorded "Frequency" in Liverpool with the band, as Grant felt he could capture the organic sound. Grant recorded the piano first with the rest of the track built around it. Grant said the album as a whole does have a retro sound to it, but the band did not want it to "sound too retro". The title track was one of the first songs Grant wrote for the album in 2003, and was at first written on a piano before being translated to guitar, and also said that he could have easily recorded the song with strings. "Tumble and Fall", which became the album's first single, saw Grant describe the recording process as "old fashioned", with bass player Taka Hirose saying that the band should include it on the album. The song was recorded with the vocal and an acoustic guitar at first, and then the other parts of the music built around it.