In the early dawn of 2025, the three of us plus Gus the sound engineer and John with the piano made the long journey up to Skye to take the ferry to North Uist, to a tiny cottage that was to be our home for the next five days. There we did quite a scary load in of the piano - only about 2 inches of room to spare and it took an hour! - then set up all the recording gear and had dinner. There was no plan for the music - I had a bunch of voice memos that we’d tried but otherwise had no real idea of how the album would turn out at the end (or if we’d get one!) This was very different to how we’d previously recorded - I think after 4 carefully planned albums I was ready to try something a bit riskier. 

We spent the next 2 days workshopping ideas and doing takes, going to the beaches and playing darts at the local pub (we were all equally rubbish, so it was very competitive). Wednesday was our third day and was to be Laura Jurd’s arrival to produce, but bad weather stalled all the flights so we committed to a day of producing over zoom. This was my first time working with a producer and even over the airwaves Laura’s energy gave us something different to what we had before - a deeper focus on what each track was trying to achieve. 

Laura thankfully made it up the next day and we spent a long Thursday polishing off the album. In the end I think we did almost 100 takes - but I think that this let us really develop in the space and keep getting better as we went on. After one last darts tournament on our last night, the ferry thankfully sailed the next day (the weather was still fairly up and down - though that did mean we drove home through Glen Shiel in the most incredible thick blanket of snow).

I’ve never written liner notes for an album before, but I feel this album carries something a little different that deserves to be explained. Uist really felt like another world at times, so far removed from everything yet so calm, and I think placing ourselves here to make music drew out an energy from us that hasn’t been captured on record before. This was a pretty bonkers idea and I have a lot of people to give thanks to for its realisation; to Gus, who recorded us and also his family, Uncle DJ and Auntie Margaret for allowing us to set up in the cottage; to John, who brought us the piano all the way from Essex (!) and stayed around to tune the piano, make tea and be lovely company; to Camille, for making the long journey to capture the experience on camera; to Laura, for shaping the album and pushing us for every take; to Creative Scotland for the support; to James and Michael for making the album sound sonically beautiful; to Dave and everyone else at Edition Records for all the support; to Olivia, my manager who seriously holds everything together; of course to David and Stephen for always giving it their all; to Juliette, my mum and dad, and my friends, and lastly to you for listening. I really hope you enjoy the music - I’ll remember making it forever.