Notes from Robyn on Patreon in 2020.

This month I’m exhuming some of the demos I made in 2013 for ‘The Man Upstairs’ album. These were recorded by Charlie Francis in his attic studio in Cardiff, where the seagulls wheel and cry. They will also steal your fish and chips if they get within swooping range, which is why Charlie and I never eat fish or chips in the studio.

Joe Boyd, who produced the sessions, had suggested making an LP of half original songs, and half covers. His template for this was Judy Collins recording for Elektra in the mid 1960s. I’d always wanted to be on Elektra in the mid-1960s too, so...

Joe wanted to hear what kind of songs I had in mind, so prior to recording with him and his engineer Jerry Boys in London, I went up to Cardiff. There, Charlie recorded quite a few songs that never made it onto the LP, or in a rather different form...

The first song I’m sharing, All Love And No Peace, was probably too jaunty for for “The Man Upstairs”. I don’t think it was ever played live, though I believe there’s a video of me somewhere performing it in a public gardens in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Here it is, freshly unwrapped, just for you...