WELL LIAM, IT WAS REALLY SOMETHING

SMITHS guitarist JOHNNY MARR claims to have helped record an "entire record" of LIAM GALLAGHER-penned songs in just "seven days".

Liam and Johnny Marr have been working on a number of songs written by the Oasis singer over recent months. Speaking in the current issue of Manchester lifestyle magazine City Life, Marr said that the duo completed nine or ten "incredible" songs in a week.

He said: "It was just Liam getting a chance to record nine or ten of his massive back catalogue of songs. When Oasis came off the last tour, he'd really honed them; just him and his guitar.

"I'd heard the songs so much through hanging around houses and dressing rooms that I could almost walk down the road and hear the entire record in my mind; everything down to the guitar overdubs. Liam just wanted to get the songs down but it ended up sounding like an entire record. To all intents and purposes, we made an album in seven days.

"Some of the material is incredible; he's starting to get his own identifiable thread in his songs. It's very dark and very deep; not throwaway in the slightest. Nor is it party-time rock'n'roll. It sorta goes through the 'White Album' and comes out the other end... like the Whiter Album."

Marr also said that the track Liam has written for the new Oasis record, 'Born On A Different Cloud', is "lyrically as good as anything I'd wanna hear".

Oasis will release new material in 2002, although it is unclear what will become of the Marr/Gallagher studio sessions.