Meet the gang

Here’s a chance to meet the people behind the songs. These are a few images from our rehearsals before the album release.

The joy of having Sophie play cello is offset a touch by the manner in which we have to travel! Thanks to my last remnants of chivalry, I insisted on having the ‘big fat butt’ end. In reality, she beat me in a ‘best of 7’ series of paper, scissors rock.

This was the first time many of us had caught up since the recording way back in September last year. In fact we hadn’t even all been in the same room then, so this was a pretty special time. The songs hadn’t existed live before now. Here Michael and Sophie have a ‘strings’ team talk about how to make each song more wonderful. They’re quite good at it.

Here are two of the most gifted vocalists I’ve ever worked with. Both with that wonderful ability of making the lead vocal sound even better, without taking away from the focus of the song. On the left is Kirstin, who sings with what I call a ‘beautiful abandon’, while on the right is Fred, whose control and tone makes me want to shut up and listen. Which I can’t really do.

Then we have Jeff, our drummer. On this day he was playing the left overs of a kit that we found in the back cupboard. He did well. He did even better when we had a few more things for him to hit.

Finally we have Matt, whose terrible posture doesn’t get in the way of his brilliant musical sense. Matt produced the album and directed our live arrangements. Consequently both were awesome. Keep an eye out, I’ll upload some video in the next few days. Thanks to Rowan for taking these pics.