The Accidental

Take the man behind The Memory Band and co-founder of Trunk Records (Stephen Cracknell), the twisted songwriter from Tunng (main man Sam Genders), one half of Fence Collective duo The Bicycle Thieves (Hannah Caughlin) and singer-songwriter Liam Bailey. Put them in front of a PC with the help of a few friends and the outcome is new collective The Accidental and their beguiling debut album There Were Wolves. The track 'Wolves' was the first song they penned together and now the first single to be lifted from the album. Kindred spirits Cracknell and Genders combined forces via a series of chance encounters and happy accidents that inspired the band's name. The first came at the Green Man festival, where the pair first met and made plans to send CDs back and forth in the post. Hannah joined the fold via another happy accident, when Domino artist Adem introduced her to Cracknell as a potential housemate. She didn't move in, but she did end up in the band. An old friend of Sam's, Liam joined after turning in an impromptu performance at a joint Tunng / Memory Band gig. Genders takes up the story behind 'Wolves', another fine slice of observational twisted storytelling that's become synonymous with his other band Tunng, "It's about blokes yearning for girls who seem to have magical powers and exist on a higher plane than them. So they get drunk and hunt in packs and some of them treat the girls like prey and some of them are just trying to find the courage to say hello. I always imagine it being set in the local nightclub in my home village of Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, the Pav. That's the neon cave where she's spinning in the scarlet dress. It's about every friday night in the Pav. Or any friday night in any town." The string section on 'Wolves' includes Laura Moody and Jennymay Logan from the Elysian Quartet and Rob and Nancy from The Memory Band also make appearances. The flip side is the Hot Chip 7" mix of 'Knock Knock'. Joe Goddard from Hot Chip takes the track, which features vocals from Caughlin, into dark electronic territory. "We had the opportunity and desire to be very free with what we were creating at the beginning." says Caughlin. "The fact that we all had other bands and projects on the go while making this record gave a real space for the album to grow with out pressure or expectation which i think is what allowed beautiful and rare moments to filter through."