These are the unedited notes I sent to Jon Dale who did the press release for Two Sunsets...
The idea of us recording together came from Tenniscoats. They suggested they would like to record with us at the end of a Scottish tour in 2006. I know we were excited but maybe wondering if they meant some kind of completely improvised session. But it turned out Tenniscoats already had a song, Two Sunsets, which they wanted to record with us and another slightly more abstract piece called, Welcome To The Sea which was also beautiful. Katrina contributed Start Slowly which I think we were all trying to feel our way into. Gerard Love and Bill Wells also played on the session. The recording, in CAVA where we'd recorded Illumination, was promising but rushed and when we listened back it didn't seem to reflect the feeling we'd felt in the room.
By the time Tenniscoats next visited Glasgow we were working on a theatre commission for a Glasgow company called 12 Stars (established by Gerard McInulty and Carolyn Allen who both also play in The Wake). At first there was no real overlap between the sessions which we were working on mostly at Norman Blake's home studio, with contributions from Gerard and Tom and Alison. I think the idea was to record something new with Tenniscoats but we were playing back mixes that we had just completed and Saya had an idea for a vocal line. And by then Ueno wanted to add some guitar so in that moment the two projects became connected. I think Saya described the music as something like Pastels underneath, sounding beautiful like a big cloud, with Tenniscoats flying over.
I think we were still frustrated by the first session because we felt that there had been something good but that the recording was unusable. Our friend Bal who had worked on The Last Great Wilderness was working in a new studio and was asking us to come in and try it out. So we did and we were able to rebuild some of the music from the session and record some more tracks. Songs were always there when we needed them. We were never stuck. Saya and Ueno always brought music that we loved and I hope it was the same for them. Sometimes there were slight communication problems - was Ueno really saying 'play thirds like on Hotel California' or something completely different?
We got into a group playing mode at Bal's studio with Saya, Ueno, Katrina, Gerard and myself. Almost every day seemed to be sunny and productive. It was really a great session. I could tell you about a couple of songs. Song For A Friend was about Tenniscoats friend and collaborator, DJ Klock who committed suicide. It was really special for us that Tenniscoats wanted us to share in this song and write some words. Saya and Ueno explained the feeling they had and Katrina and I tried to find words that fitted. I think we all became very close during the sessions.
The last song we recorded was Boats. I suppose I was partly thinking of it for our own LP but now I think this is the best place for it and I can't imagine it without Saya and Ueno. When we started 'construct' as Tenniscoats call mixing we seemed to settle on mostly natural room sounds. Tokyo Glasgow, About You and Vivid Youth have slightly more production about them but even then we tried to always work instinctively and quickly. Most of the arrangements took place in the playing and often when we left something out it would, as Saya said, start to sound 'very missy'.
Stephen Pastel, July 2009.