I would say that we are now halfway through making the new album, probably over halfway in fact… More rehearsals this month, and then another batch of recording with Brian at Bark in March… I am also finishing a few of the sparser tunes at home, so we should then have a decent batch to choose from for the album. So far we have steered clear of the temptation of over-arching concepts , although a couple of “recurring threads” are certainly becoming apparent…

It is satisfying to be recording as a band in a studio again, as the last couple of albums have been made in different ways in different places. I like both manners of working, but it is nice to be playing together in a traditional studio environment again – I especially enjoy doing the guitars this way, as you can crank up the amps and make a racket… Brian is really fast to work with so it all seems quite immediate… So far so good!

So I shall tempt fate and say that the album will definitely be out this year. It still seems likely that it will be a Shirley Lee album, but it is actually a real band project – all of Spearmint play on it, and there are no guests so far.