Silk Stone and Silver Wood is a dirty-sweet, meaningful, yet light adventure. It explores pop, rock and even country - though the latter wasn't deliberate. Riffy guitars crackle away like some spooky old radio while the lyrics are true stories - it is nothing if not honest. My ideas never occur in one style. Summer of Love is based on sitar riffs; Cursing the Dark is driven by raunchy guitar; Alethiometry is rippling acoustic; thoughtful lyrics over heavy rock is how I made Son of The Night and a happy go lucky 60s pop-rock riff flies East Coast Line. So you see that's how I got to the album title. Not from a concept, track title or even a lyric, but to explain the contrast - stone can be silky; silk can be strong and the darkest woods can shine like silver. Of course you knew that all the time... I've done all the recording and artwork (except the petal pic by Rosy Auckland) and I imagine clever people might shoot plenty of gaping holes in the sound and the look. But I didn't want to create any false images by relying on other people's stuff to make me look good - or better than I am. It is the best of what I could do in each moment. I sincerely hope you get as much out of listening as I have from creating it. People talk about journeys but for once, it's nice to just enjoy the here and now. If you want more detail you could just buy it but I do ramble on on my website, alexjoliver.com Alex Oliver, Sheffield August 2014