Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate - The Light of Ancient Mistakes (2023)

'The Light Of Ancient Mistakes' is Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate's seventh album.

Although not a traditional concept album, many of the songs have been inspired by books.

The centrepiece of the album is ‘Walking To Aldebaran’, inspired by the science fiction novella of the same name by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The tracks ‘Avrana Kern Is Made Of Ants’, ‘The Requisitioner and the Wonder’ and ‘Gothi and Gethli’ are references to a character, two spaceships and a pair of crow-like creatures which insistently deny they are sentient in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s ‘Children of Time’ series.

Science fiction author Iain M Banks’ novel ‘Look To Windward’ is the inspiration of the title track. The track ‘The Man Who Japed’ is named after the Philip K Dick novel.

The childhood experiences of David Cornwell, who wrote as John le Carré are the inspiration behind ‘Sixteen Hugless Years’.

‘The Glamour Boys’ was inspired by Labour MP Chris Byrant’s book of the same name about the experiences of a group of mostly homosexual or bisexual Conservative MPs who argued against appeasement, despite the threats from Chamberlain’s government to expose their secrets. Many went on to risk, and in some cases lose their lives in the Second World War.

The album also features ‘The Anxiety Machine’, a three part instrumental interspersed within the album, ‘Goodbye Cassini’, a flute led tribute to the space probe, and ‘imtiredandeverythinghurts’, which is about Malcolm’s experiences with invisible disability due to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and the difficulty in knowing how to respond to the well-intentioned routine question ‘how are you’?