What’s happening I hear all 3 of you cry! Well .. a lot … we have been very very busy the past few months and also incredibly productive! I know … shock horror, right? Just when we were starting to make Peter Gabriel and Tool look prolific, there came an outpouring of music and ideas …
Where did the time go?
It’s been a long time since the Leaves album was released … 8 years in fact! So, what have we been up to and why has it been so long since the last Nine Stones Close album? Well, we have plenty of excuses, erm, … I mean reasons.
Leaves was a particularly difficult album to make for many reasons and we were all exhausted by the end of the process and a little jaded with the whole thing too.
There had been more lineup changes, more delays, more difficulties and lots of uncertainties at play, but we were glad to finally get the album finished and released. We were looking forward to playing a few live dates, and that suddenly fell through, which was a big disappointment for all of us too.
Writing for a new album started right away, with myself and Christiaan spending many sessions together in my studio writing and putting demos together. Within a couple of months, we had written material to rehearse for a new album when more line-up changes happened, and more delays arose, and we decided to shelve the album until we sorted out what we wanted to do.
During this break I spent my time working with Michel Simons on the Jet Black Sea albums, Absorption Lines and then The Overview Effect. The Overview Effect was the most rewarding and fulfilling album to make and something which we are both exceptionally proud of.
Then, just as thoughts of going back to the Nine Stones Close album were surfacing … real life happened.
Cue job change, moving house and country to Germany, leaving behind friends, starting again, relocating the studio and building it up again …. then just as things were settling down enough to work on the music …
Cue personal illness, other band members availability due to life changes, insane work pressures and then … pandemic, lock-down …. and depression. I had barely picked up a guitar for more than a cursory strum in 2 years by this point.
During this period Brendan and I connected and started work on a new instrumental project and wrote and recorded a lot of material of the course of a few months, I think we have in the region of 30 instrumental tracks completed, and just as we were working out what to do with it …
Cue more changes … moving country again to Switzerland, new job, new house, relocating and rebuilding the studio, starting again, more real life issues, more illness and more depression .. I was beginning to wonder if I could every write or record anything of note ever again.
Then in early 2023, after some discussion, I started writing again for a new Nine Stones Close album with Brendan. Things were a little slow to start with for me, but Brendan was on a roll, then in the summer of 2023 I hit a wave of productivity and inspiration after a visit from Paul van Zeeland, where we spent some time in the studio together working on a track.
Suddenly the brakes were off and by end of the year we had finished writing and by early this year we had the new band line-up with a new drummer, a new bass player and completed recording and started final mixing for TWO new albums.
The first of those albums, Diurnal, will be released soon. We are currently working on the release schedule, organising pressings and all the other ‘fun’ stuff that needs to be done to release an album. The second album will follow soon after.
We are really excited for everyone to hear the new music; we think it’s some of the very best music we have made so far.
/Adrian
