Things have been quiet on the gigging front, but Andy, Phil and Martin have all been busy recording . Andy should have a solo album out by the summer -a collection of new and old, but with the exception of You’re a Sensation, tracks that will not be familiar. Phil has dug deep into his musical past, refashioning songs that sometimes didn’t get an outing with Loris, but enshrine that inimitable Kirwan mixture of wit, melody and surprisingly complex emotions. Martin is writing some great new songs too - probably the most commercial of the lot, He’s also got back in contact with his pre-Loris musical collaborators (Bliss) and has helped them reconstruct their late 60s material.

In the meantime, Andy has put together a selection of tracks from the first two Loris archive albums. If you already have those, A Natural Selection may not be of interest, but if you’re looking to by a representative selction of Slender Loris’s best old material, this one can be bought on CD Baby. You can also get digital downloads from the CD Baby site. Just click on the album image for details of the album and some other information about the band.

Other material for Brum nostalgists cans be found by following this link to the Big Ears page.

Andy has been archiving old recordings of the legendary Jim Cleary and recording some new stuff with the equally legendary Dave Carroll - some of Dave’s wonderful guitar work and some collaborations. (See Cleary/Carroll for some complete pieces.)