Triceratops

# Triceratops was recorded during stolen moments in his wardrobe studio and on Dictaphone beneath the desk at work. # Themes this time include shaving, expanding waistlines and a tribute to Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer # The album digs deeper into Ash's evolving love of cut and paste 4 track home-fi. # Recordings made on minidisc and Dictaphone were assembled and caressed into life back in the wardrobe studio where vocals and extras were added # Triceratops also features Ash's son Ifan who committed to tape the spontaneous masterpiece that is Billy D Horsey one afternoon out behind the shed. # Dictaphone experiments in the garden have resulted in the companion album Dictaphone Home which can be downloaded for free. "Home recording carries on becoming ever more popular all the time, with the more creative and experimental of musicians able to put together sounds in their bedrooms on their laptop – in amongst the chaos and busy-ness of the rest of their life. The great myth that music would die out if we stopped paying for CDs is further being exposed as a result, but does it mean a shift in the way that we’ll view music differently as a result? I hope so. Singer/guitarist Ash Cooke is one of the latest contributors to such a philosophy, assembling bits and pieces together using a four-track recorder and Dictaphone ‘during stolen moments in his wardrobe studio’. It’s music for music’s sake – with no pomp or overblown ceremony to speak of. It’s not even to say that this stuff is just for those weird muso types that squirrel themselves away clutching armfuls of dusty vinyls, espousing over which valve microphone gives the warmest tone - with the likes of ‘tUnE-yArDs’ getting big-label support from 4AD. Sound-wise, it has elements of the likes of softly-sang Iain Archer, but with all the added cut-and-paste obscurity of Highland songster Calamateur. It has the child-like innocence of someone exploring the world with fresh eyes and observation (and in fact, Ash’s son Ifan played his part on the track ‘Billy D Horsey’), and enough wonder to draw you in. All of that aside, Who can dislike a record that starts with ‘booze, booze, beautiful booze’?" - Stephen McLeod, ArtRocker