The Ventriloquist

It's all about Bad Communication...

'The Ventriloquist' is a very personal record and I always thought that sort of thing put people off, but it seemed to work this time and 'The Ventriloquist' is a lot of peoples favourite of my albums.

In order to replace Tom The Harp (Who was by now getting too busy with Florence and her machine) and Fiona the bassoon (who had just moved to Chile,  handy) I learned to play the ukulele and the bass clarinet.

So in theory I played every instrument myself, but that's a show-business lie;  really 'The Ventriloquist' is full of samples of parts from my other records; flutes and saws and drums, music boxes and percussion.

I was 3 parts mental during the making of this record and didn't get it together to release it very well, I actually failed to even mention it on my own website or make any physical copies.

Odd then that Marillion's marketing manager Erik Neilson should chose this time to advise me to make t shirts of the artwork for the album. I designed them but again, being somewhat lost at the time, I never printed any. I can though if anyone would like one, just e-mail me...