The Concept

The 'Album-a-Day' project is a collection of albums (388 so far) that have been written, recorded and published within a 24 hour period, designed to encourage creative thinking within a set of rules. From their website:-

• It must be written, performed, recorded, post-produced, etc. all in one contiguous 24-hour period (preferably with no sleep break in there).
• It must be at least 20 minutes or 30 songs. (many short songs tend to work better than long songs which drag on forever, trust me.)
• Your band may have multiple participants, but they should not work on different songs simultaneously. (So just one song being worked on at a time.)
• No ideas from before the chosen day! This means covers or reinterpretations are not allowed.
• No out-takes! If you start a song, finish it and put it on the album.

The Reason

Just why would we do such a thing?

Because we can. To make it more interesting, we provided a video webcast of the whole event, though we did have a problem with the sound cutting out, which was something of a disappointment.

The Music

Click on any song name below to see more details and the lyrics for the song.

Second Glance

Self-analysis from the darker depths of the soul.

Reality TV

Slowly killing what remains of quality television, this is an anthemic gob in the eye of the media's fixation with so-called reality TV.

Saloon Bar Sermon

Wholly improvised, with extensive use of the string synth to provide chordal backing to Sean's pub-style rant.

Choices

A song about the differences in people's lives being attributed to the slightest, seemingly insignificant, choices. Almost completely acoustic except for Gordon's somewhat chilling, subtle theremin part.

No Strings Attached

An instrumental improvisation, named for the take which saw Mick forget to set 'record' on the string synth track, thus missing several minutes of his efforts.

Stobby

Look at the side of an Eddie Stobart lorry and you'll see women's names by the door, a tradition which spans many years. This is a a little tribute to the 'ladies of the road' so familiar to any road traveller in the UK.

Exquisite Replica

A totally improvised song, including the lyrics, inspired by the title of a piece of spam email.

Busting Loose in the Ether

A long improvised instrumental based around a mangled and delayed guitar line played by Sean whilst Mick plays just about every other instrument in the Lunacy Board armoury apart from drums and Wilco adds his unique tones to the mix.

Second Chance

Sounds familiar? Two, almost completely different, vocal lines were improvised for the song 'Second Glance', and both Gordon and Wilco sent theremin accompaniments, so rather than try and fit it all into one song, they've split and become a pair of musically conjoined twins.

The Guests

Many thanks to our two guests on this album. Gordon Charlton (a.k.a Beat Frequency) is a leading light in the UK theremin community, and his webpage features several of his slowly building, atmospheric pieces, several of which have striking accompanying visuals.
Wilco Botermans is a specialist in alternative controllers, based in the Netherlands, often seen using a special glove to change sounds as he plays the theremin.