How did album come about?
I had to write some answers for some interview questions for GIG magazine in Barcelona and I couldn't believe how much blurb came out! Way too much! So I figured I may as well find some use for it! So, here's the story of how we met, how we made music and all the twists and turns that made MISNOMA what it is today! We can but keep on keeping on. Enjoy!

How did the album come about?

I met James in Brighton in 1997 at an audition for a terrible pub rock band. Two weeks later after quitting said awful band, I got a look at James's Cd collection and nearly passed out at the similarity to my own. THere was life changing John Martyn and Bob Dylan sat next to groovy acid jazz: the Young Disciples and D-influence and then some Bach and we stayed up til 5 in the morning talking about music. The connection was made. James had left his high-paid London job to move to Brighton to pursue his more artistic side (script writing and song writing) and had a few sketches of some really half decent tunes written on guitar. I was at University and was really a hippy chick 'girl-n-guitar' and my voice, having been classically trained, sounded very flute like and pure. We immediately hit it off and started singing together in various venues in Brighton, though I did feel a slight aversion to the Kumbayah-couple appearance of the act and so we got some other musicians involved. Namely, James Stevenson on bass (later to be founding member of ChungKing) and Mark 'Bonkers' on drums. At this point, sonically and rhythmically, the music was based in acoustic funk, acid jazz and we used to sing in unison (which would drive me crazy!) When I finished University I wanted to get the hell out of the Uk (I was brought up in saudi Arabia and couldn't stand the long winters and cynicism of the UK) so we both decided to make a move to warmer climes and ended up on La Maddalena, a tiny island between Sardinia and Corsica. There, me teaching English and James concentrating on his script, we would spent long sunny afternoons working out harmonies and developing the songs. Some of our most fun gigs were there; outside at a beach side bar with the stars above. I sometimes look back and think; "Man life was simpler then!" My contract ended so we had to look for a different adventure and decided to head to Spain (South; so I could get my sunshine and James could remain close to London for work). On the way down from Barcelona port to Almeria (the chosen destination) we stopped at Sitges. Many have likened Brighton to Sitges so we thought it'd be a good place to stop for coffee on the way down. It is then, that I had a huge panic attack and stopped us in our tracks. There was something about the place that made me KNOW it was where we should stay (despite having a flat and job waiting for me in Almeria). So James left me there and went back to London to work, while I stayed in the Sitges campsite in our blue VW camper van with Luke the dog and looked for somewhere to live. This was a real turning point. I spent 2 weeks in a state of total anxiety, of not knowing where or why and what I was doing. One of the songs on the album 'Step alone' is based on this time. Of needing guidance and (although we're not really religious) needing God to just tell me what to do. I managed to find a beautiful (and CHEAP) farmhouse between Sitges and Vilafranca, with 5 bedrooms and a pool, and even better, the perfect space for a recording room and rehearsal space. We quickly got hooked up with a bass player from Germany and a drummer from Detroit (both working in Sitges with Seat) and later Jamie Keddie from Scotland on keyboards and we managed to get a great set together. We even started busking outside the Chiringuito on Sitges's Paseo Maritimo.. which inspired our original name: 'Xiringuito' which has now become the name of our label "XiringuitoMusic". By this point half of the songs on the album were written and we invited dear friend and great programmer, then DJ Deadbeat Muggs, now known as Knid, to come and do some programming for us. I shopped the demo around Barcelona a bit but, truthfully, the sound wasn't quite found yet. After 2 years of living in isolation in the masia, James and I decided to go our separate ways and I moved to Barcelona. Although it was very hard emotionally for me at first, I remained true to the band and we are still the closest of friends. I started up an open mic night on Wednesdays at Kabara called Kabara Kabaret and I realised there were SO many musicians in Barcelona all doing their own thing and not having any outlet. Many of those musicians have played on the album! That's how we met Jules (Jahanpour) who is now one of the four members of Misnoma. We played residencies at the London Bar and Kabara as 'Xiringuito' and got quite a local following (mainly guiri population). The pivotal point in the Misnoma sound was when we were invited at the very last minute (literally 3 days before the event) to play at Glastonbury on the Leftfield stage before Billy Bragg. None of the band could make it at such short notice so James and I flew there on our own. I was determined NOT to be the kumbayah couple with just guitar and 2 voices after we'd arranged the songs to be funky and upbeat so James raided his beats library and we played the whole set along to beats off the minidisk. We went down a storm... and it got us thinking; 'we don't like the limitations of drums (sound-wise and gig possibility wise i.e. in Barcelona at the time it was near impossible to get a gig if you had real drums!) and all the music we enjoy listening to has programmed beats. We were lucky enough to have a drummer very aware of his bad drumming and very into electronic music, so the switch from live drums to programmed beats wasn't too painful. Using Ableton Live (definitely one of the first groups in Barcelona to do so, especially with a real band accompanying) the MISNOMA sound was born. NB We changed the name at the same time that we changed the line-up and also because at Glastonbury, so many people had problems saying and spelling Xiringuito that we decided we should change it! Jules joined us and brought with him some serious jazz knowledge and jazz style improvisation, solos and harmonies which fitted very well with our acidjazz roots (in fact we used to do 'Apparently Nothing" by the Young disciples as a cover!) and we were getting more attention at this point due to the interesting mix of sounds: electronic beats, funk, house and big beat rhythms and jazzy rhodes keyboards. My voice was also maturing a lot and became more sensual, womanly and powerful. James started taking a back seat vocally and we were finding our way. We had some memorable gigs at City Hall and a residency at Club 13. It was time to start recording. We did things a very weird way round. Live, simultaneous takes in the studio and recording Ableton Live manipulations straight into the track as the instruments were playing on top. And although this meant the sound was fresh, it also meant months of editing. We then realised that the audio quality from live wasn't that good anyway so we had Simon Ashton (aka BigBossa) come in and clean them up and in some cases reprogramme them. Then we rerecorded vocals, keys, bass. However, because we knew so many musicians, we wanted to get them in on the album. You will see we feature all sorts of people. Gabriela on electric guitar, Jay Harden on trumpet, Marcos Andreu on didgeridoo, the lovely VO quartet on strings (a real treat and recording challenge to get them on there but oh so worth it) and so many more. It is then that the album started taking on completely different proportions and started feeling like an opus rather than a group of guys playing music. We also decided that recorded percussion wasn't credible live so we put an ad up on loquo.com and God shone down on us when he brought Esteban to our world. A multi-talented, energetic ray of sunshine who also plays guitar with us now. Introducing live percussion meant that a lot of the beats had to be changed and meant that the album would go through another morphing. We did a few gigs with this formula, including residencies in Oven and headlining Pulgas Mix but we still weren't happy with using set backing tracks so we went one step further to introducing a live DJ, who would trigger loops and samples using Live. Dj Saeg from Mexico had a very distinct sound and wanted to make his mark on the album so we allowed some serious stylistic changes to allow him to express himself! That sound is now what you will hear on the album. An exotic mix of electronic beats, lush strings, jazzy keyboards, funky bass, latin percussion and of course my sensual voice on top. James spent a long time, meticulously editing and mixing the sound to allow space for all these different elements. The songs had come a LONG way since singing them on the Sardinian island!

(Mastered at Stereophonic Mastering, USA. )

Misnoma's debut album, "Make it Right This Time" released April30, 2007!
Now available on . . .