Magnetic Weather began as a way to test whether a live room could remain audible after the songs became dense. Every chair movement, count-in, and passing car was treated as part of the arrangement rather than something to clean away.
The doors stayed open throughout the first afternoon. Traffic entered the softer songs; a delivery trolley landed in the gap before Secondhand Light. By evening the room had stopped behaving like a problem and started setting the tempo.
Only complete takes were considered for the record. When an overdub was unavoidable, it was made from the same position in the room. The finished pressing includes the session map and the musicians’ first set of handwritten cues.