In lieu, sort of, of new material I recorded some songs "live in the studio", partly so that I could have recordings of them. However, the studio in question was the stairwell where my producer/engineer/collaborator Juan Piola was living (which happens to be upstairs from where the latest Cultural Amnesia material was recorded). Consequently this particular group of recordings is called The Stairwell Sessions.

Juan did a terrific job, I thought. Considerably better than me, in fact: I'm still getting my voice and fingers back on active duty. However, points of interest include:

• A recording of Unison, not about the trade union, sorry. I thought of the lyrics and tune for this walking back from the open mic at the River Bar in about 2000. I walked home the long way, via Old Kent Road, by mistake, which gave me the time to do it. Better than the version on Drill Hall, I think.
• I don't think I've recorded River Rise before. The bridge and solo are a bit tentative here, but it would be of interest to people who've heard me perform it over the years. It was written, sort of, at Dan Buzzo's place in... well, a long time ago. Late 90s. We were messing about with soft synths and recording and so forth, and I started to improvise these lyrics. Dan cut the track into shape and posted the result to MP3.com (remember MP3.com?). I listened to his version and learned it from that.
• Of course I posted a whistles-and-bells version of Gravity here a few weeks ago, but this the way it sounds in performance. A bit different, I think you'll agree.

There's more to come soonish