Hiya

You know, this announcement has been delayed by about a month – and I think you really should know why….

A few weeks ago I had a phone call from Mickey to say i should come down to his house, as he thought he was having a heart-attack. He was being totally serious. After a cardiogram and chest x-ray he was declared fine, but the weeks of stress and over-work leading up to this had left him in a position where combined with a couple of other physiological factors, he wasn’t very well.

He’d spent about a week on a mix for ONE song and was getting pressure from the rest of us (by that I mean me and Steve [Steve is our Marsden Rock without the erosion, he helps us run our label and is a one of the many reasons, alongside a fantastic person named Peter why we still function]) to finish it off. It is a reality of life that you have deadlines but for Mickey it is hard – he cares so much about what we do that it has to be right. Right for him, right for other people, just right. BUT: we need to hit deadlines…. you can appreciate the interminable collision along these lines that 2014 has been.

We’ve done everything this year – from researching manufacturing, to learning about making videos, to editing artwork, to making music stands dance in a stop motion idea that was rejected after a day in a garage – and that’s what makes it matter so much that we get ill… so yep, we had to delay this announcement but I would guess that you would all understand that, because we do really honestly get the sense that you really care about us too… (sorry for the overblown sentimentality, but as long as it is true then there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that).

So, we are very delighted (if not a little jaded) to announce that our third album HOPE IS JUST A STATE OF MIND is now available for PRE-ORDER from the following link (*if you are outside the UK click here*). As promised we are also releasing some new music today in the form of a new song called EX-CATHEDRA which you can hear here here hear hear here hear.

This song is from a new EP called THE SANGUINE EP, which features FOUR completely new songs. Like The Gentle EP, you’ll be able to get a limited edition PERSONALISED version, but you’ll only be able to order it if you pre-order the album (doing which will get you a cheeky little discount ;)).

We’re using a website called Pledgemusic to operate our album pre-order and there are a number of reasons why: firstly it allows you to be totally flexible in what you offer to people – we’ve often wanted to reward people who come to gigs, alongside buying t-shirts and EPs – and this page does that. We can bundle things together so that if you are buying a ticket for a gig AND an album you get it a little bit cheaper. Secondly, we make a lot of things like artwork that people never get to have – again the Pledge page will let us put items that will not be repeated – whether an original piece of artwork or a personalised song. Thirdly, one thing we liked about the system was the ability for a band to have REALLY unique experiences open to people who support them. However, the one thing that never chimed well with us was a band charging a large amount of money for such a thing – we thought it was a little cold and restricted to someone with very deep pockets. Therefore, anybody who orders a copy of HOPE IS JUST A STATE OF MIND will have the chance (the same chance as anybody else) to win one of these experiences – whether a day in the studio with us, playing percussion on an album track, having your name in the sleeve notes, or an acoustic gig in your house. We wanted these to be a thank you to people as opposed to something we sold.

We’ll updating these blogs quite a bit over the coming weeks with new bits of information about the pre-order and also, the other tracks from the EP but until then, thanks for reading this!

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