The offering here is more of an Indie Rock feel as we’ve moved away from the heavier material. For me tracks like Iona were influences by REM ‘Monster’, Nada Surf’s ‘Let Go’, Posies ‘Frosting on the Beater’ and Harvey Danger’s ‘Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?’. Laticauda Colubrina melody was heavily influenced by the doors and is even paired with a keyboard line. Aphelion‘s multiple time signature changes make it progressive influenced by the aforementioned Radiohead, albums like ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac’, especially the delayed vocal sections. Where is the Line? is ostensibly a lullaby but it’s also about being stuck in the same cycle, a purgatory and Sycamore influences lean back a bit further into the late 80s and early 90s.

Then I rediscover my love of electronics and begin building guitar pedals (there’s four of my builds in the picture of Nick below). This rekindles my interest in guitars and, before I know it, myself and Nick are waxing lyrical about pedals, music, antiquated analogue recorders and underrated bands.

It isn’t long before one of us has the idea of putting together a few songs recorded on a four track cassette … collaboration via Mail! Nick already owns a Tascam 424 MkII so I look for one, buy it … it’s broken … F*** it!

Meanwhile I fire up Pro Tools and start dabbling with Guitars/FX and suddenly I find myself writing material again. I pretty quickly finish the first version of ‘In Embers‘ and apprehensively send it to Nick, at this point I’ve never put my own vocals on a recorded song!

Somewhere along the way we name a song ‘Moths to Ashes‘, the song doesn’t make the cut but the name seems like a good fit for the band, as the ideas of transmutation are pivotal to our project.

We’ve heard many stories of musicians having a tough time with lockdown but, fortunately for us, creativity explodes. I still think of that time as being a type of enforced “Woodshedding”, it’s not long before we have a bunch of songs and so the project gains momentum. Ultimately these songs are weeded down to ten for the debut album ‘In Embers‘ (12th March 2021) and a bonus track exclusively available of the taster E.P. ‘Tides‘ (26th February 2021).

Moths to Ashes was born out of my former life, out of the ashes of a mutual friend’s suicide, out of the ashes of darkness, derision and divorce. ‘In Embers‘ contains ten guitar-driven songs about addiction, madness, the occult, isolation, longing, inhumanity, lust, anxiety, disfunction .. but ultimately, it’s about dealing with those things, finding the light (again) and embracing it.