Sklavo Cervalo or ‘Slave Horse’ is the name of an animal of burden that lives in a beautiful but bleakly savage land within our hearts, a place where minds become lost.

The heavily laden horse relates to us all as we trudge through life slowly crumbling physically and breaking mentally. Every small change becomes a permanent scar and our very real traumas etch their painful, miserable details into our memories which bubble and flow onto the waste land, poisoning the life below.

How do we cope? We either crack or continue along the track, turning corners, climbing up hills and keeping our heads down, remembering the hope we once had when we were young, strong and full of the vitality of life.

It’s based on the discussions myself and Dan have had about ageing and losing something that once made emptying our souls into our art so easy but which now seems vacant. Life slows down and calms but the mind carries this weight of memories and self reflections that are dulled by our adult distractions (having kids, marriage, work, death etc..)

Time is short to fulfil our creative addiction so this album is an example of two people trying to find a small release within the confines of the hectic mundanity which is Reading and its car-full roads, dead grey buildings, consumer parks and tacky commuter homes.

We were born free but all become shipwrecks at sea and like the Sklavo Cervalo that beaten down mule, we must look down the track and keep up the hope.

– James Burgess