For half a decade, the sextet has been haunted by one elusive conceptual project that had bested their every attempt (of which there had been several). They first conceived the album back in 2017, a busy year for the group. Within a mere twelve months, they recorded and released five albums of new material, but the band had intended to see out the year with a different album. That album was called Changes, and its finally arriving now.

I think of Changes as a song-cycle, says band member Stu Mackenzie. Every song is built around this one chord progression every track is like a variation on a theme. But I dont know if we had the musical vocabulary yet to complete the idea at that time. We recorded some of it then, including the version of ‘Exploding Suns’ thats on the finished album. But when the sessions were over, it just never felt done. It was like this idea that was in our heads, but we just couldnt reach. We just didnt know yet how to do w