DAVID McALMONT & BERNARD BUTLER

ALBUM THE SOUND OF McALMONT & BUTLER, AND THE CLASSIC POP MOMENT YES WHICH WAS LIFTED FROM IT AS A SINGLE, WERE TWO OF 1995’S TRUE JOYS.

For guitarist Bernard Butler, collaborating with former Thieves singer David McAlmont offered a release from the pressures of success and scrutiny, and the constraints of being in a formalised band line-up. Butler had left Suede in 1994, during the difficult making of second album DOG MAN STAR, and working on the songs which eventually became THE SOUND OF McALMONT & BUTLER was a chance for him to operate with few boundaries, push his capabilities to their limits and explore the outer edges of his sonic ideas. Standing at odds with the gaudiness of Britpop THE SOUND OF McALMONT & BUTLER was soulful, brave and immersive; a self-contained statement bearing little relation to what was going on around it.

For its twentieth anniversary, a deluxe version of lost gem THE SOUND OF McALMONT & BUTLER is being issued in October. The original album is presented alongside a disc of previously unreleased demo material plus a DVD. In this new edition of The Mouthcast – conducted as a Skype conference call between Butler’s London studio, McAlmont’s home and The Mouth Magazine office – David and Bernard talk about an enduring record which somehow managed to be greater than the sum of its already not inconsiderable parts…