Nook & Cranny’s debut album ‘Karma Waters’ is out now, and the story of how it came together is as interesting as the music itself. London-based psychedelic space rock duo Dean Cass and Matt Sullivan recorded all guitars and drums across four improvised jam sessions over a couple of weekends at Bally Studios in London in early 2024, with no prior writing or rehearsing. Some of those jams ran over 30 minutes. The best parts were kept, trimmed, and shaped into something cohesive, with bass, synth, and samples added later at Matt’s home studio Flighthouse.
The two first met in Fremantle, Australia in 2009 and have been making music together ever since, through Silent Republic, Moon, and Astral Lynx before landing here. Nook & Cranny started as a low-pressure side project, just two musicians going into a rehearsal room to jam for the fun of it. That loose, instinctive foundation is audible throughout ‘Karma Waters,’ a record that breathes and moves like something discovered rather than constructed.
The album name came from a boat moored on the canal next to the studio. The polaroid cover artwork was shot around the studio and in Soho, the lo-fi immediacy of the images mirroring the improvised sessions that built the record. Mixed and mastered by the band themselves, ‘Karma Waters’ is entirely their own from start to finish.