Hello from a buzzing Racket Club studio

We thought we would take this opportunity to give you news on our acoustic project as it has been unfolding over the past 2 weeks.

The early stages of this process have seen us stripping back some of our favourite Marillion songs - old and new - to their bare bones, and rearranging them from the ground-up using, where possible, only acoustic instruments.

Pete has been playing Balalaika, Xylophone and Glockenspiel as well as bass: Mark has been discovering autoharp in addition to his piano, organ and harmonium; Steve has been exploring the delights of mandolin and Portuguese guitar along with 6 and 12 string acoustic whilst Ian has been playing a few African drums in addition to drum kit and skulls. h has been hammering on his dulcimer and "Dulcitone" - a sort of keyboard instrument involving struck tuning forks - in addition to vocal and percussion.

All in all it's been an exciting time spent roughly sketching what's possible with this new palette of sounds. Next week we'll get down to the serious business of fine-tuning the musical arrangements and starting recording.
We're sure we'll have something really special for you in the Autumn.

Some of you seem a bit confused by what we are planning, so we thought we'd give you some feedback..
The first thing to emphasize is that this is a full-band Marillion studio recording. This will comprise - for the most part - new and radical versions of our previously recorded work. Not remixes - completely new performances. We'll limit ourselves to the acoustic format, although it's likely that Steve R will avail himself of electric guitar for the solos.

The staff at the Racket Club have been occasionally wandering through the studio area as we're working and the reaction has been unanimously positive so we are confident that Less can indeed be More!

The plan is to record the album in the studio over the Summer and the finished project should be with you some time in the early Autumn 2009.
From the end of July we are planning weekly videos to show us in action in the studio and to give you the chance to get a glimpse of the music ahead of its release.
We will then be supporting the album with the 'Less Is More' Tour later in the year - something the five of us are really looking forward to. The tour will give us the opportunity to do something totally different on stage and play songs from the L=M album plus loads of other tracks which already lend themselves to an acoustic arrangement.

Thanks as ever for your continuing support, We'll send you more news as it breaks!

h, Ian, Mark, Pete, Steve