It's been a slow birth but our third album is nearly finished. Eleven tracks whittled down to ten, mixing will begin next week.

Progress on our new album has been held up due to the fact that I've been unable to find a suitable drummer for the songs. By suitable, I mean a chap who can do the job and not charge the earth. It seems that our troubles are now behind us due to the fact that Tim Powles, possibly our favourite drummer on Earth and certainly one of the nicest humans on the planet, will be visiting Blighty in the spring and has volunteered to come to our rescue. Oh Fortuna, bless his sacred sticks.

Marty and I have spent most of the last 6 weeks writing and recording the 3rd Nocky album, working title "Modeste"

Song titles are

Mao Tse Tung Kiss
Tora Tora Tora
Cry
Running through your Fingers
Victorian Vignette*
Bad Dreams
Better Hope You're Not Alone
The Fugitive*
Unforgiven*
Jazz (working title)
False Flag

I wrote lyrics and sung on asterisked songs. Marty and I share lead vocals on False Flag. Marty sings the rest except Jazz which is an instrumental.

There are a couple of rockers, a couple of ballads, but mainly lots of tuneful songs with some great guitar solos. Yes, I finally let the MWP guitar beast out of the cage on this one.

Marty is now in Sydney playing a Church show, then he's going to San Fransisco to play at a festival with the Mood Maidens. He's left me to carry on with the album. The first thing I'll do is to record real drums on all the tracks. Then a few more overdubs and mix. We're hoping to have this one ready early in 2009 but we'll keep you posted.

Peace and love,

Dare.

Marty, accompanied by Tiare and his renovated Takamine 12 string arrived in Penzance this week. At present he is busy filing CD's in the music archive (did you know Marty is a librarian in between writing the odd song). If you want to find out more about the archive, go to Marty's myspace and find the In Deep Music Archive listed among his top friends.

Anyway, we spent most of his last summer's visit recording "Nightjar", his solo album. So this time, it's the turn of Noctorum to take over the studio. We begin recording on 21st July and have given ourselves two weeks to write and record the bulk of the record. We like to work fast and spontaneously. Then I take months to complete it, so don't hold your breath for its release. But at least it's gonna happen!

We'd like to thank everyone who has enjoyed our music and for all the encouraging feedback we've had - it makes it all worthwhile.

Viva Love

Dare and Marty x

FOLD, the electro/chillout collaboration between Dare and David Bickley have just had their debut album released through Arabesque distribution.

To celebrate the launch they are playing their first ever gig at the Big Chill House in Kings Cross on March 12th. It's free, Tom Green plays support, there are visuals, guest musicians and much more.

More info on FOLD site.

www.myspace.com/foldofficial

Hope to see you there!

Lots of people seem to be excited about the new album I'm producing for MWP so I thought I'd better give you an update on how things are going down at the VIP Lounge.
We have started recording ten of Marty's songs. These include Lullaby for the Lonely, I Must Have Fallen, Song for Victor Jara, High Down Below, Feed Your Mind, A Game for Losers and The Love You Never Had, all of which Marty has performed live. Two brand new songs written last month - The Sniper and No-one There. And More is Less is a song discovered recently on an old cassette.

So far we've recorded 12 string acoustic, some bass, some lead vocals, all the drums, accordian and whistle. The album will be a mixture of stripped bare acoustic songs and haunting epics. With a pop song or two thrown in.

All looking good so far.

Later dudes and dudesses

Dare.

Actually, that title is a bit misleading cos Marty and I are together here in Penzance at the Noctorum control centre and we are going to make a new album but it is going to be a Marty Willson-Piper solo album. He has 10 songs ready to go and it has been ages since he released an album of his own. So starting next week, we'll be ensconsed in the VIP Lounge and I'll be producing. He's written some great songs, many of which he's been playing in his live shows.

Dare.

The recent interview of Dare Mason on David White's BBC Radio show can now be listened to as a podcast on this site. Dare talks about how he and Marty write and record and also about his production work in Cornwall.

Our good friend David White is to feature Noctorum next week (24th - 28th Sept) on his radio show. He broadcasts from 9am till 12 pm on BBC Radio Cornwall and will play a Nocky track every day at about 11am. On the 27th he will do an interview with Dare at about the same time. We shall attempt to upload the interview at some time for those who cannot listen to the interview live.

The new Noctorum album, "Offer the Light" is at long last released and available. The album features 10 new songs and is the usual eclectic mixture of styles ranging from soft balladry to cutting edge dancerock. The album has been very well received and we are expecting some positive reviews, which we will post as soon as they come in.

To purchase the album click here