55 by msamson

It's impossible to explain how this record came to be made. Music was always there, but so was chaos. Lives and relationships pushed and pulled by dysfunction, addiction and the darkness of depression. When Michael left us in 2016, Colin and I were devastated. He'd been our greatest inspiration and the funniest, wildest and warmest friend we'd ever known. We played Sunday Morning at Mike's memorial and shared stories of implausible but true shenannigans with him on both sides of the Mersey and down in North Wales.

Colin had been travelling the World playing drums and I'd been raising kids and writing songs, learning to use a recording studio and entertaining diners with song every weekend in Liverpool. The drink had become a serious problem for us both. An occupational hazard. I'd stopped just before Mike passed and Colin knew he had to. This part of our journey was over but the next was unclear.

We headed north, to the Outer Hebrides, to wait tables and make money to clear our debts. The Temple Cafe was a stone igloo on a track that ended at the Atlantic Ocean. The caravans we lived in rocked and rolled in the nightly gales. We lived on meusli and the fresh wholefood from Gail's kitchen. Gail also had a drumkit. Like Lee Marvin in The Gunslinger, Colin began to practice again. Without a straight line or a flat surface in sight The Cafe was a perfect space to play music. The random stone surfaces were both dead and bright. Jamming for parties on days off was a real pleasure for us and the Temple's regulars. Colin said it rivalled the sound of some of the best studios he'd worked in.

Returning from a weeks holiday in Spain I brought back some recording gear and instruments. I'd been writing songs for fifteen years or so and a crazy plan to start recording them was beginning to take shape in my increasingly clear mind. Our days started at ten in the cafe, serving food to the cyclists, birdwatchers and camper van enthusiasts who populate Harris through the summer. They ended, sometimes at five in the morning, with a drum track stuffed onto a warm hard drive. Five months passed quickly. Exhausted and wedged we left in early October, Colin to Liverpool to become first call for anyone needing a drummer, and me to SW Scotland to sort out the hours and hours of recordings to make the skeleton of the LP.

We both felt that we were in a better place. Recovery was real. Music had saved us...again, and somehow we felt that Michael was still around, listening in, laughing with us. We returned to The Temple in 2017 for round two. Colin's chops were back and I had a pretty clear idea what to do with the songs to turn them into a “proper record”. We worked our arses off. Apart from visits to town on our day off to raid the charity shops for DVDs to watch in our swaying caravans we barely left the cafe. One of those DVDs – The Last King of Scotland – had a fantastic African funk soundtrack which gave us the idea for the percussion arrangement on My Secret Life. Colin played everything in the cafe's kitchen to create the eclectic layered rhythms of an authentic West African percussion troupe. We played the roughs to Gail and Reuben who owned the Temple and to some of the folks we'd befriended. The responses were encouraging. Maybe we really were making a record. By the time we left for the second time we'd got the arrangements and basic tracks down for fourteen songs. Now what? I mixed. I mixed some more. Something eluded me. Colin agreed. Our work still didn't sound like a record. Michael would have agreed too.

Colin knew tons of wonderful musicians in Liverpool. My brother Daniel, a classically trained composer, scored some string parts. Some fine players from Liverpool's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra realised them expertly. A choir was organised by Perri Alleyne-Hughes, veteran of countless high profile vocal extravaganzas and an amazing singer in her own right. Michael's extraordinary talent on bass, now lost to us, was recreated by not one, but four, exceptional and completely different bassists. Laura Jane, an orchestral player, sunk the foundations into the sea-bed of dark mystery that is In My Head, and also played the gorgeous flutes on Throw Down Your Gun. Hugo is a jazz player who brought warmth and real depth to the simple lines of Kindness. On Sunday Morning, Jim dug deep into his compendious knowledge of classic pop to craft a part of rare originality and playfulness. The weaving, winding, loping and popping low end energies of For So Long and Promises were Roger's contribution. His confidence and clarity made the complex sound simple. Michael would have been pleased with the results. Closer now. More like a record. Perri's choral arrangement for Throw Down Your Gun, and it's beautiful execution by her with Dionne, Jo and Aziz, lifted the song into the realms of art. It was wonderful to experience the transformation.

Maybe the origins of this record aren't important. Maybe there's just the simple inevitability that love and music are energies with their own story to tell, and we give voice to it as best we can, surviving the turmoils of life, striving to keep our side of a bargain we don't fully understand. Without the support of family and friends nothing can be achieved. Without suffering there's no authenticity. Without time there's no truth. We thank you for buying this LP, and for believing in us enough to want in on a story that has literally taken lifetimes to tell. msamson January 2021

msamson + PLETHORA OF SUPERHEROES MAKE MUSIC TO PROVE LIFE WORTH LIVING