Kelpe - Kyverdale Road (2021)

At the start of the first lockdown I didn't know what do with myself. And the weather was great too. I fished out some battered old cymbals that a friend had given to me years ago which were gathering dust in the bike storage thing. Setting up a couple of microphones I thought, wow, with I can actually record drums with a pretty decent sound at home. The neighbors couldn't complain, they were too noisy all night (you can hear them jumping around at the end of one of the tracks btw). So I started building up more of a drum kit, with a nice snare and floor tom off ebay and a conga I found on the street. OK I didn’t use the conga, it sounded terrible!

I’d always wanted to make an album with guitars on, but since I never learned it properly I tuned the strings certain ways to help me and did quite a bit of editing. I wanted to use Galina again for the strings but she couldn’t come round so I bought the cheapest violin ever and worked out how to play a few notes on it and used a lot more editing to make arrangements.

I knew I was leaving the flat I lived in for 14 years and the area too so I wanted to get it all done before I left. Making albums is a bit like writing a diary I think, and whenever I’m looking back on a memory I place it by what music I was making or released that year. I’d made so much music in this place, so saying goodbye was hard and I thought it right to name the album after it - the building you see in the background is where it was made but I don't live there any more!