blueneck: a blog
under the influence: a moonlighting playlist
3rd June 2026
Ahead of the listening party over at bandcamp on the 9th June, we've made a playlist of songs that we feel had an influence in the making of Moonlighting. Be it guitar sounds, rhythmical patterns or just overall atmosphere, these songs will have had some kind of effect on us at some point in the process of making the album. Here's that list for those of you that don't use Spotify...
It's a Wonderful Life - Sparklehorse
666 ʇ - Bon Iver
Light Chaser - Cult of Luna
Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode
Trimm Trabb - Blur
Sign O' The Times - Prince
Are 'Friends' Electric - Gary Numan
Black Swan - Thom Yorke
Into You - Low
Remurdered - Mogwai
Directions to the Can - Lambchop
Oh Baby - LCD Soundsystem
Silverfuck - Smashing Pumpkins
Atmosphere - Joy Division
Mama - Genesis
Staircase - Radiohead
Gift - Sugar
Love Like a Sunset Pt 2 - Phoenix
Mediate - INXS
Life's What You Make It - Talk Talk
Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5xZoA3XpqU7zF8JWZWbsZV?si=1J22fsU7SaONFOgSBszG-Q
album 7 .... what took so long!?
1st June 2026
Duncan here...hey! So, we're FINALLY releasing what is our seventh album. It's been a somewhat eventful album to make this one. Believe it or not, i'd started writing the first few songs soon after the release of The Outpost back in 2016 - I think, from memory, we had a preliminary recording session in the studio back in 2017...9 years ago....
What when wrong? That's a good question. We had a decent amount of recording done by the end of 2019, I'd just returned to the UK from a family roadtrip to California's West coast and was ready to finish the record in 2020.... then a global pandemic happened...remember that?!
Myself , Rich and our producer Mat attempted working remotely to get the record finished. But what seemed to work for others, just wasn't working for us. Things stalled...
Finally things cleared up and we thought that we really should get this album out from under our feet. Unfortunately, Mat's wife was struck down with a serious illness. Obviously this meant that less time could be spent on the album...as should be the case. Thankfully, a full recovery was made :)
By this point, these tracks have been hanging around so long that you're thinking 'do I really care about these bloody songs anymore?!'...... the answer, inevitably, is always 'yes'....eventually.
So by 2023 we'd made yet another start...and this one was looking good. Rich was doing a stellar job finalising guitars, we're in and out of the studio with Mat experimenting with synths and refining beats and , I'm blasting through all of the vocal sessions....looking good for a 2024 release!
Then, what will be our next hold up happens! Are you still with me...!?
I do a final main vocal session for what turns out to be Goliath , and then a week later I suffer a stroke. no shit. I won't bore you with the details but let's just say it was lucky I did the final vocal a week before because I sounded like a cat being strangled for about 3 months after and then about a year after , once I was able to speak properly again and , sing, my vocal range was completely different. I'm one of the luckier ones, I was young to suffer from a stroke so my brain repaired pretty well.... I'm on the mend and now singing less like a dying cat...I think.
What DID happen during the first year of my recovery was an acceleration in getting the album finished... without sounding morbid, you kind of think 'we ought to finish this goddamn thing before anything else happens!' So everyone stepped up .... it kinda helped that I had a lot more time on my hands during recovery.
The album went through extensive mixing...it got mixed three times - Mat was EXTREMELY patient with us...I think each time I said to Rich 'I think the whole album needs to be remixed, it's not quite right' .... he probably just secretly thought I'd gone mad ... much like George Lucas with the Star Wars franchise.... but he went with it....I think by that point we all just thought 'what's another 2 years?'
But we're here... sorry it took so long.
The good news is, that I really don't think that follow ups and new music will take as long... honest!
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Dunk x