This album began with an email back in late 2021, Al at Stolen Body Records asked if I wanted to come and record an Astral Session in Bristol to promote an album id just released called Out Of Season. I roped in the three people who play on my records that lived the closest to me (Neil Turpin from Bilge Pump/Objections, Robbie Major from Benefits and piano and saxophone wizard Ben Hopkinson) and we had a couple of rehearsals to get a set together - half improvised around songs off my last couple of records. It sounded good so off we went to Bristol. Did the session, had a night out and drove home the next day. All good? WRONG - the tape fucked up and nothing recorded properly.
Oh well, we had a nice day out but I’m not going back to do it again - its a 6 hour drive each way! But we DID enjoy it so when Al asked us again to play his Astral Festival in 2022 - we went down and did it, and again, a great time was had - and when we got back I decided we should record the set we had been playing in case we never did it again. Where shall we do it? The back room of the social club in Middlesbrough that i spend half my life and half my money in, obviously We spent the morning recording the set we had been playing and the afternoon recording new totally improvised stuff. It was then all chopped up and edited - a re-recorded sax and synthhere and there, some extra guitars added in places - then off to Anthony Chapman to mix and it was finished. This LP is a 50/50 mix of tracks we have been playing live and new pieces recorded that afternoon, which feature guest vocals by Mike Watt (Minutemen, Stooges), Jad Fair (Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston) and Kevin Branstetter (Trumans Water) reading the words of Karen Schoemer - all of whom i have a long history of making records with and are some of the finest humans you could encounter. The album release is timed to coincide with us playing this years Astral Festival - a full one year journey... and in true 'just to be awkward' fashion - I doubt we will play any of this stuff live, life is too short so will play a whole new set, and then probably record it, and release another album.
