Well summer is coming. Not my favourite season, I much prefer cool nights and moderate days. I step out of my radiator of a car in Ilkley to greet Jackson on an idyllic road at the foot of some rolling hills. J. Blez (Aka Jackson) is ⅕ of the band Imaginary Husband, the one member who was missing from our session together last year. He must have had serious FOMO, because here I am in his grandads garage along with another ⅕ of Imaginary Husband, Charlie.

Jackson’s grandad makes signs for a living - hence the ‘Protein’ cut out and various other eye-catching phrases scattered across and around his workbench. I think Jackson’s grandad had a big musical impact on him, I felt the importance of this space to him. Not that that stopped me from pushing boundaries, early on I got Jackson to climb one of his ladders to play guitar atop of it. Let's not be too sacred, otherwise we're just gonna record a regular old pop song.

The birds were giving it the big-un outside, so we opened the garage door and recorded the first guitar, hoping to capture some of this natural melody from the cul-de-sac. I don't think much survived apart from the chimes of the midwestern strings. When we recorded Imaginary Husband, Aleks made a point of replicating the J. Blez playing style, so I was not surprised to hear something so sweetly complex. After the second take, where we successfully shielded against the light breeze, we moved onto Charlie’s bass.

Now a Normal Village member after Lucy’s departure, Charlie seems to be the go to guy to largely improvise a compelling bassline. Our one obstacle was the timing of J. Blez’s guitar playing, as a click was never an option I gave him. Always better to play freely, but tempo swells are a tricky thing to predict for a bassist without drums. Fairplay though, he did it. And with some flair too, as you'd expect, some buttery notes from Charlie.

We headed down to the cornershop for a Bombay Bad Boy and saw what we could pick up. I’ve been proper gluttonous recently - Jesus would be cross. The boys egged up their pot noodles, but I took it straight; I crave the kick. No time to waste, we added a lead guitar, super wet, courtesy of my dads old Marshall combo, which rarely gets an outing but is actually pretty solid at getting a clean tune. It pokes through here and there, but it's all about the dueling acoustics, let's be honest.

Then it was back to the acoustic, to give it the stereo experience we wanted. I knew it would be impossible to replicate exactly what Jackson played in the first place, but we love the chaos. It's like a slightly random delay that just creates this galaxy of notes. J. Blez had been singing emo tunes all day, but once it got to the end, I could sense there were some nerves. I’ve recorded quite a few people who haven't had their voices recorded before, it’s a completely singular experience. You can hide behind a guitar a little, but your voice is so unavoidably you. Luckily Jackson pulled up his notes page of random lyrics and gave his soul, with a little tongue in cheek for good measure.

Love these guys: a little slanted, very enchanted and they are big Contact Buzz supporters too. CB fans just seem to get it. Pushed back vocals, letting the acoustic do the talking - small little imperfections and some utterly beautiful moments caught along the way. On the way home, me and Charlie discussed the future of Imaginary Husband, teasing me with some of his own music for a future project where he’s gonna move onto guitar. These are young lads, but everything they involve themselves in seems to turn to gold. That's what being talented and enthusiastic gets you, I guess.

For Fans of: Elliott Smith, The Album Leaf, Toe.