Bob Drake was one half of Indie rock group Hail, and still plays bass with ruthless avant rockers The 5UUS. As an engineer, he's worked with everyone from Ice Cube to Engelert Humperdink. Another card in Drake's hand is the bizarre series of solo albums he's produced in the last few years, with no one else there to curb his wild imagination. Little Black Train introduced us to his version of Death-Country, and Medallion Animal Carpet followed up with what sounded like a collaboration between Bonnie Prince Billy and Captain Beefhart. And now there's Skull Mailbox.

With this CD Drake has lost it altogether. Strange little picked guitar pieces are the basis for grotesque songs; a seance goes horribly wrong, headless ghosts fly about, and everyone ends up dead, or locked in the cellar, or both. Interjections by massed choir and orchestra suggest a 19th Century comic opera, and influences are as diverse as the Beatles and Henry Cow. Drake's choir-boy vocals and the occasional off-beat heavy riff also cast a glance at ancient prog rockers Yes. If this sounds strange so far, the production sends the material right over the edge. Occasionally drums pop out of the far left of the speaker, vocals far right, grungeing noises appear without warning, and everything has a rotting compost quality which makes it sound like it was recorded in a decaying barn - which indeed it was!

In Bob’s words:

"I decided to try doing an album based around the classical (nylon-stringed) guitar and vocals, with an overall connecting theme: each song would tell a short, weird or horrible little story. I recorded most of it in a large, crumbling, empty barn where I set up a couple of microphones and a hard disk recorder. With it's vast dimensions, superannuated stone walls, floors of ancient masonry, and multitude of gaping windows and doors, the old barn provided a naturally reverberant sound and fantastically atmospheric place in which to work.

Besides the classical guitar and singing, I used a cheap, air-powered electric organ, and when I wanted to use a drum kit I'd piece together something using a few broken old drums and dented, bent, nitre-encrusted cymbals. In addition to these fine items I would also utilise "things" I found in the local dump; garbage cans, old decaying metal washtubs, boxes of old beer cans (mine mostly). Naturally I used some electric guitar and bass, but I tried to keep the more acoustic-type sounds as the focal point just for a change. Because I recorded most of the tracks out in the old barn, there are often noises from outside on the tracks: wind, dogs, occasional farm machinery, some pigeons who live amidst the worm-eaten rafters, and some other things upon which it is perhaps best not to speculate."

"Imagine Faust playing Country and Western. Furiously compressed instrumentals, violent changes in tempo and texture, roots, avant garde and minimalism all come under Bob Drake’s all encompassing brief." The Wire

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