The Various Assortments - Paul Program - Keiron Standfield - Chris Garnett
original unsigned ambient electronic rock music band from Liskeard in Cornwall

Ten things you never knew about More Songs From The Moon

1. The album is a sequel to the unreleased album Songs From Moon
2. The lyrical theme was inspired by a Western Morning News article entitled "Moonscape is a green and pleasant land once more"
3. All the songs subtitled Moonscape are adapted from the same initial piece of music
4. Except Hi Life, which is subtitled Moonscape 5 for no real reason
5. The album was recorded variously in two different home studios and in various locations using two different laptops
6. Steven Ayres' pocket trumpet solo on Mexican Moon is a ten minute unedited live take
7. Many melodic elements reoccur throughout the album. In classical music, this is known as interpolation
8. Almost every track has been played by DJ David White on his BBC Radio Cornwall's BBC Introducing show
9. None of the tracks have so far been performed live
10. The album was solely written in Liskeard, Cornwall using Sonar, Reason and Reaper and mastered in Sound Forge
 

Initially inspired by a Western Morning News article about the regeneration of the “moonscape” chalk pits at Bodmin Moor, the Various Assortments set out initially to make an ambient electronic album. As the music progressed, their natural pop sensibility crept in and lyrics and choruses were added, along with more avant garde elements such as jazz trumpet, techno beats, slide guitar, acoustic guitar and harmonica.

The brain children behind the project, Keiron Standfield and Paul Program, composed most of the material with Chris Garnett adding space rock guitars and harp which were then laboriously recomposed via computer. All three then wrote lyrics for the project. Additional contributions came from Martin Baxter (saxophone), Steven Ayres (trumpet) and Ben Garnett (programming).

The Various Assortments have been busy in the studio since retiring from live performance last year. Stripped down to a three piece, they have been holed up in their various studios across Liskeard working simultaneously on four different recording projects: a contemporary sociopolitical album called Great Britain; a plastic soul Motown tinged album telling the story of a relationship from start to end; a satirical musical called Pies, and this, their first release on iTunes, entitled More Songs From The Moon.
 

More Songs From The Moon - How It Happened

by Keiron Standfield

In the summer of 2011 whilst working on keyboard parts for the track Here On The Moon, I accidentally came across 8 chords that would not only be the genesis of MSFTM but also split TVA apart.

Although played at our last gig in The Barley Sheaf, Liskeard, this piece of music, at the time being used as an intro to Here On The Moon, general disinterest towards it and a so-called new direction, plus numerous other factors caused both Martin Baxter and Steven Ayres to leave the band. Tim Young never officially left, but work and other music interests left just Paul Program, (at the time part-time) guitarist Chris, and myself.

During this period many other tracks of a psychedelic ambient nature were worked on, some I haven't heard since those rehearsals, and some which are gone forever (hard-drive failure) were recorded for a potential ambient album. Paul managed to use Steven Ayres’ trumpet from one of our last jams to create Mexican Moon, which is the only track from this era to make the More Songs From The Moon album. Fast forward to January 2012 and for reasons many, I too left TVA. At the time I thought this was for the best, however something wasn’t right and in April 2012 began work on "Moon 2" which eventually became Moon Under Water. After Paul accepted my request to rejoin the band (which took a good few days...) I also worked on what would later become Last Days On The Moon (thanks to Chris' vocals and guitars).

Months later in November 2012, I started two new tracks (the other would later become

Wonderful) and thought it would be a laugh to put some of Martin Baxter's old sax on one of them. I played him an early version and he was happy with it. The next night at the Red Lion, inspired by the Western Morning News moonscape article, Paul added a vocal top line (some how I got the credit for this?!) and the day after I recorded it, and Chris added guitar.

This should have been the end of the story however due to a large number of disused tracks, including some from Chris' son Ben Garnett, part 2, then 3, then 4 all followed in quick succession. Paul suggested tweaking an earlier half finished demo Hi Life to go on "an album of moonscapes and moon under waters". Paul primarily worked on Moon Under Water 1 and 2, plus the album's big moment Moonscape 6 (Another Day On The Moon) which was again based on material Chris and Ben added to my original demo, not to mention the artwork.

In early 2013 Paul began another project, Great Britain while Chris and I busied ourselves with Earth On Fire, and what would become Dayglow Daydream.

By May the album was near completion and only 3 tracks were remixed (Moonscape 6, Moon Under Water 2 and Earth On Fire) and the final disc was compiled by December 2013. On the eve of January 15th 2014 the album was uploaded to iTunes, and a CD followed in May.

Although More Songs From The Moon may not be our most commercial work, it is a finished article (rare for the Assortments), and as of November 2014 is still getting airplay on BBC Radio Cornwall.