so, that new record..

Jim Lockey, Ben Marwood & the Oxygen Thief - Exclamation at Asterisk Hash EP

1. Jim Lockey - Waitress (EP Version) // 2. Ben Marwood - Friendly Fire // 3. Oxygen Thief - There Can Be Only One // 4. Ben Marwood - I Will Breathe You In // 5. Jim Lockey - The Boat Song (EP Version) // 6. Oxygen Thief - Too Many Trees // 7. Ben Marwood - You Can Hold On Once // 8. Oxygen Thief - Sunclouds // 9. Jim Lockey - Atlases (EP Version)

Released 13th July 2009 on CD/download through Josaka / Broken Tail Records.

A product of sheer coincidence, Exclamation at Asterisk Hash clocks in at 33 minutes and 1 second. That's not the coincidence though.

It came about like this: I met Barry Dolan, herein known for some reason as Oxygen Thief, when we shared a bill in front of about 11 people in a pub in Cambridge last summer. He tipped me off as to a good gig to be had in Cheltenham at the hands of a guy called Jim Lockey, who happened to be the very same Jim Lockey I ran into two days later at the video shoot for Frank Turner's 'Long Live The Queen'. I made it up to Cheltenham that November, and kept in touch with Mr Thief, and it was finally decided around then that a split record would be a good idea.

Thus, we set about separately writing and recording three singles, if you will, to be squished onto one record.

Continuing the prevailing theme of coincidence, the tracks went together pretty easily, thus the finished product weaves in and out like Ricky Hatton recently didn't. In terms of songs, anyone whose caught the live show in the last six months will already have heard 'Friendly Fire', anyone who caught the set in the six months before that had a good chance of hearing 'I Will Breathe You In' and only ten people have heard 'You Can Hold On Once', which is actually quite a nice feeling, but things cannot stay this way forever.

Of course, there's that title. Despite the fact that i don't swear on record, it caused enough cussing for us all. For Jim Lockey, he was trying to do all this stuff whilst studying for his finals and recording his second album (Atlases is out in August), Mr Thief had some kind of computer-based meltdown, and i managed to lose a pedal steel player, find another one and then lose a whole bunch of violin takes and fail to find another violinist. Oops? Still, thanks muchly to Paul Smith and his singing bowl talents, Kurt Hamilton on pedal steel and Chris Sartin for the loan of his trusty glockenspiel.

I am going to point out at this point that the title of the record is Exclamation at Asterisk Hash, and anyone who dares to insist that the title is !@*# is going to feel some wrath of some kind.

Tour dates and pre-order links to follow soon enough, dear people.
x