Just a heads-up regarding the new record: please note both formats are extremely limited – just 500 CDs and 250 vinyl will be available through the Chord Orchard shop and a large chunk of both have already gone. Thanks everyone who’s pre-ordered so far. Shipping will commence first thing in the New Year ❤ Thomas
Edit: the album will also not be appearing in full on Spotify or any other streaming sites – exclusively available from us this time (via Bandcamp). We will endeavour to get a few out to record shops but we’ll have to see how many are left as we’d like to have at least a few to sell at shows.
We are EXTREMELY excited to announce vinyl and digipaks of Stages have arrived safe and sound and they look even better than we could have hoped. Absolutely perfect. Here’s Al unwrapping the vinyl gear. Pink splatter!! A massive early Christmas present for us lot. We’ll start shipping first thing in the new year so any orders should arrive on or just before the digital release date. ♥️
We are thrilled to announce the group will be returning to France in May 2020 in support of the new record/s. We had such a good time this year we had to say yes to more. Playing some familiar places and others we haven’t done since the early days…. Dates/venues coming soon. 🇨🇵 Thomas
Today the test pressings of Stages arrived and we can confirm DMS have done an incredible job. Crazy levels of diligence, attention to detail and experience throughout, and the results speak for themselves. They’ve produced a beautiful pressing, retaining the clarity, depth, dynamics and detail we spent so long getting just so. These things can so easily be lost with sloppy pressing/mastering, so it’s a joy to hear the physical record turn out quite so good. We couldn’t be happier, and while we’ve pulled out all the stops to make all formats as gorgeous as possible, hearing these songs on vinyl today felt uniquely special – the full, coloured, double/gatefold package is gonna be a THING to behold.
Quite odd to be referred to as a group “renowned for not granting interviews”. I feel like we’re pretty forthcoming should anyone ask us serious questions. We were once asked how we met. That was a good one. Anyway, here is the inside scoop on all things Stages and beyond. Many thanks to Alan at RGM for getting in touch. Enjoy! Thomas x
Without any further ado, we are delighted to go live with the pre-orders for Stages TODAY. Double vinyl, CD digipak, download – take yr pick. We’ll be going live with more tracks from the record in the coming weeks so hold yer horses. Big love from me and Al. Txxx
We appreciate this has been a long time coming, but we needed to get this right, and we are now there. We can confirm today that our 5th record, STAGES, will be available January 10th 2020 on CD/LP/download via Chord Orchard, with pre-orders opening on October 12th this year. Beyond this new record we are also already deep into preparing the follow-up, a ‘sister’ album of sorts – AVENUE DOT. We will follow up both releases with as many shows as we can financially and logistically manage. In the meantime we are delighted to share a first track from the new record – Roles Reversed – our first new music since 2013, no less. Feels surreal and wonderful to finally have some new music for you lovely folks – we hope you love it as much as we do. ❤ https://chordorchard.bandcamp.com
Scroll on down for the full scoop from Al…
ESPx
“Several years after our mother passed away, I sat down one day and wrote the rough shape of an album; a concept album, as it were. I took on the multiple perspectives of the experience of death and grief – trying to imagine my mother’s feelings and how she experienced both her life and her death, as well as how others in the family may have felt and reacted, as well as my own sense of overcoming this grief.
Having spent some time working out the songs with a new group of musicians, culminating in recording (and completely shelving) the project, around a year or so ago we decided to bring this project back from retirement and re-tool it, re-imagine it, and re-record it. Thus, we present ESP #5 – Stages – our personal tribute to our mother, our family, and ourselves.
Hopefully, this personal vision and interrogation of grief may provide others with a roadmap of sorts to navigate these deep, dark, universal feelings – not in a depressive, maudlin manner, but rather with an honest, reflective, and ameliorating tone. As Kelly Jones once sang: you gotta go there to come back.
More recently, I once again sat down and visualised the shape of an album… one song written in reaction to the last, and so on… the theme of this collection of songs became a roadmap for navigating one’s own depression and negative feelings towards oneself. Essentially, a record about mental wellbeing, positive attitude, and, if you will permit the term: self-love! These songs constitute a second, ‘sister’ album: Avenue Dot, which will also be release in the early part of 2020.
14 songs in total.
Written and sung by myself, produced and recorded by Thomas, these albums are truly collaborative and represent a new period in our output, with my writing having been less than forthcoming in recent years – I have now hit a peak, I hope. I am extremely proud of these pieces of work, both in their honesty and their construction. It is a strange feeling to be a fan of one’s work and genuinely satisfied and engaged with it: often in the past, I have felt I have ‘got away’ with things, or not been able to fully realise my ideas. Not so here.
The records are entirely self-produced, with mixing by our longtime collaborator Matthew Twaites. I couldn’t be prouder of how ’Stages’ sounds, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. I cannot express my gratitude to my brother for helping me realise my ideas and for galvanising this project into what it has become.
I cannot wait to share this new work with our audience and the wider world. We both hope that people will enjoy this work, and fall in love with it as we have, and I personally hope that if people are suffering from feelings of grief, of loss, of self-doubt, of depression, that these works can offer some solace, some relief, some respite, some distraction, some healing, some positivity; some light in all that darkness out there.
Thank you for your support and for hanging with us all this time, and I hope you will enjoy this new era of the group.
