As to how they came to be on the album, it was purely down to the fact that that I love them as players and that we all get on as people. The prog scene in the UK is unique as we are all squashed together on this tiny little island and so there is a lot of contact between fellow players. That naturally promotes integration and collaboration. They are also all musicians who go out of their way to ignore genre boundaries and just make the best music they can. I can totally respect that.

 7) I've heard of them all except for Danny Claire. How/where did you find her?

Danny is a crucial exception to the musicians above as she works almost exclusively in the electronic and dance world. She is based in Eastern Europe and how she came to be on the album was one of those happy accidents, which I don’t think could ever be repeated.

I was about three quarters of the way into the recording of the album when I realized the main character of Dora simply didn’t feel present on the album. To remedy this situation, I resolved to audition a number of female singers for the part of Dora and wrote a number of linking pieces (or blogs), which featured her ‘talking to camera’ so to speak.

To flesh out these blogs prior to a singer adding their vocals, I used a sample CD which featured Danny’s work and fully intended to remove them once I’d found a singer I could use in the studio. To my surprise (and in a similar way to Phil Collins getting the vocalist gig with Genesis after Gabriel left), every time I auditioned a singer, I ended up preferring Danny’s voice. Soon after I realized that I had already found my Dora and used Danny’s exclusively on the record. This is something I am immensely proud of, as I love what she has done for the character Dora.

 8) What's the future for Tinyfish?

I very much hope there will be another Tinyfish album. The only problem is that since making the career move to that of a professional musician, I have to actually earn money from my musical endeavors now. Tinyfish always has been and I hope always will be, a band of friends. Everything we earn goes into a central band fund to finance future projects. As such, none of us makes any money personally from the albums we sell and this naturally complicates matters for the professionals in the band (myself and drummer Leon Camfield). Fingers crossed though because I believe Tinyfish has more gas in the tank yet.

 9) Will there be any more Shineback?

The answer is yes I’d like to do another album but it would have to be for the right reasons. The project is something very dear to my heart as there are few situations or bands where I can comfortably fuse progressive, electronic, experimental, cinematic and pop elements into one sound without anyone blowing a creative gasket. For that reason alone, it would be worth returning to Shineback at some point in the future.

 10) Will there be a film to accompany the album?

I would love that. When I first began to speak with BEM boss David Elliot about Shineback, I had wanted to record a video for each track but sadly, there wasn’t the budget to do so. Maybe somewhere down the line, we might sneak out a full production video for one of the tracks. That would be nice.

 11) Can we have some techie stuff about the recording? What software and instruments did you use?

The album was recorded deliberately ‘in the box’ i.e. inside a PC environment. I put my guitar to one side and used keyboards, loops and soft synths to write the material in order to break some musically bad or lazy habits. When you’ve played and written on guitar for as long as I, your fingers begin to unconsciously find familiar chords, rhythms and structures. I wanted to short circuit that familiarity much like Peter Gabriel did on PG3 (Melt) when he decided there should be no cymbals used at all (even hi-hats). It forces you to work differently and therefore creatively to get to your desired destination.

I recorded using Sony ACID Pro to flesh out arrangements and then flew the results into Pro Tools, replacing a lot of the loops and samples with real playing.

Two of the most used soft synths were Xpand!2, which is a Pro Tools workhorse and is an astoundingly flexible tool (the combination of the Jupiter 8 and Moog Tarus pedal patches were used to create some real bowel churning low notes which I love). The other is Spectrasonics bass synth Trilian, which can be subverted into an amazing lead instrument if you tweak it correctly.

For me, the idea is always to take a traditional sound and do something with it you wouldn’t expect. For example, I recorded and reversed a lot of the harmony vocals so they sounded like the Beach Boys meets Twin Peaks. The track Myowndreamland is a great example of that technique. You know they are human voices but they sound odd and unsettling.

 12) The album is quite "disco-y" (for want of a better word). What/who were your influences in the writing of the album?

Disco Prog? Cool! Nile Rogers look out. :)

Everything within earshot that’s interesting is an influence. I grew up being told that I wasn’t a proper fan of a genre if listened to other styles of music. I remember being ostracized by my heavy metal mates for buying and openly enjoying a Japan album. It all sounded a bit childish to me me but hey, it was the 1980s!

Along side the prog albums, my collection is deliberately eclectic. I hate the idea that there are parts of the sonic garden I am not allowed to visit. As such, for every Gentle Giant album I buy, there was one by Massive Attack, for every Twelfth Night bootleg, there was one by XTC live in New York. My Upsetters or Chase And Status records sit very comfortably next to my Lazuli and King Crimson.

In the words of Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher, Don’t Fence Me In.

 13) Do you foresee any arguments on the PA forum as to whether the album is really prog or not?

Well prog is a very broad church. Any genre that can encompass Renaissance at one end or Opeth at the other goes to show that the vast majority of prog fans are both broadminded and as interested in pushing the boundaries of music as the bands who make the sounds. There will always be people who disagree but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

On a slightly broader level however, your question reminds me of an experience I once had visiting my dad. He is a huge cricket fan so we decided to meet one afternoon at his cricket club. We were having a drink in the club bar and I noticed that the bowls club next door had closed. I asked what happened and my dad said the members had all gown old and died. I remarked that surely all they needed to do to keep things going was to recruit some new members. My dad said they didn’t want any new folk in because they liked things they way they were and so the club died with them.

It would be a shame to see progressive music suffer a similar fate.

 14) Where any ducks harmed in the making of the album?

Not at all, ducks are brilliant. I bloody love ducks and shame on you for suggesting otherwise! :)

 15) Where was Leon Camfield?

Leon Camfield was with Colonel Plum, in the study with the candleholder.