Summer is here and all of a sudden I’m about to release an album that I’ve been working at off and on for, well, it feels like forever.
I can’t even remember exactly when Matti Müller, Jonny Gee, Angi Stricker and I first found ourselves in a recording studio in Hildesheim, Germany. Matti had arranged it. He’d promised the help of a recording engineer whom I’m still yet to meet. Instead at the last minute a university student arrived at the studio only to inform us that he didn’t know how to run Cubase, the studio’s operating software. The next day we even managed to lock ourselves out of the studio. I had to jerry-rig a long branch with some kind of hook on it in order to fish the keys off the mixing console.
During the first winter of the pandemic I finally took a stab at mixing the tracks. This was after Matti’s engineer friend had once again disappeared. Despite my own impeccable Luddite credentials I now had to figure out how to transfer all the tracks into Logic, an entirely different recording software. Days of home-schooling my young daughter were followed by steep climbs up the icy and deserted London streets to West Hampstead for solitary late night mixing sessions. I’ve participated at plenty of final mix sessions but I’ve never before been the one at the controls.
To make the whole experience stranger, half the songs on the album are ones I’ve previously recorded, either with my Enemies or with Riley McMahon for our S&M record. Some of those S&M songs were in Riley’s laboratory for such a long time it felt particularly weird to be going back to them. Tunes like Cold Days Of December, Mummy’s Got Strange Friends, Laura Ingraham. Riley’s production was so gorgeous why even revisit the songs in the first place?
The only answer is that this is an unplugged album. Four musicians - four voices, two guitars, double bass, percussion. The song choices were based on the ones we found ourselves playing the most at our European gigs. That includes old Enemies standbys like In The Pouring Rain, Beautiful Monday and Building A Road. Happily, there are a few more recent tunes as well including the title track.
The full album of I Have So Many Friends will be released digitally on August 1st. You can read more about it HERE and pre-order it HERE. Watch the video of the title track HERE.
The summer release takes me to Newcastle for the first time in my life. We’ll play at The Bridge, the second oldest folk club in Britain. We’ll then be back in London for a release party at The Green Note before a journey to the Twinwood Festival in Bedfordshire for three separate sets including one on the main stage in front of thousands vintage music lovers. Check the Gigs page for other summer shows including another debut in Totnes, Devon.
Stay tuned for later dates in Europe and the States…