In September 2022 Stuart Moxham and his brother Drew were happily working in Valencia with DAVE TRUMFIO.Dave Trumfio is an American record producer, mixer, engineer and musician, best known for his production work with artists such as Wilco and his recordings with his own band The Pulsars.

Stuart had a heart scare which landed him in the hospital for three days and two nights. This obviously delayed the recording of the new album. After almost two years, they resumed recording in Valencia in May 2024.

I asked Stuart Moxham two weeks after the recording dates in May for a story about this adventure...

The second session of what we are temporarily calling "the Dave album" was necessitated by the fact that the first session, back in September 2022, was halted when I suffered a bout of atrial fibrillation. A visit to a private hospital in Valencia ensued which used up all the time before we had to fly home. Dave went back to LA to continue a Keanu Reeves album.

Unfortunately, the first session went differently than expected. Drew sat in his hotel room while Stuart ended up in a hospital bed.

During the next eighteen months I was fortunate to be given a medical procedure, which hopefully will prevent a reoccurrence of the heart condition. Before returning to Spain, in the May of 2024, I drove to Wales to rehearse at my brother Drew's place in preparation for the second visit. We then undertook the ten hour schlepp from Llandovery, to the train at Port Talbot which took us to Gatwick airport, and then on to Valencia. < The lyric from one of the (most recentiy written) songs which will be on the album.

We had previously managed to record half the tunes for the project, meaning that there were five left to begin working on this time around.

By mutual agreement the pace of work was slightly less driven than on the previous visit - we had breakfast, started work at 11:00, and finished by around 19:00 before venturing out for supper with the label boss, John Henderson, among the wonderful streets of El Cabanyal.

The whole plan was for Dave to have ten basic tracks of guitar, vocals, bass, drums and percussion to overdub on and Produce back in LA - possibly using musicians he's know since Chicago days in the early '90s, including a couple who have been playing in Brian Wilson's touring band. Of the original ten songs selected by Dave Trumfio, one was swapped for a new offering on this occasion. Dave Trumfio (Right) doing the delegation of a task with the excellent and lovely Argentinian sound engineer Max (Left)...................... >

The atmosphere in Elephant Studio, Valencia was relaxed but very focused; more enjoyable than the first time, for me at least, and pretty productive. I confess that I have become used to working in my own studio, for many years now, and that working according to a Producer's methods was challenging, but the proviso for the whole project was that Dave was the boss - and I learned some good stuff from that. I really hope we can work together again in the not too distant future, maybe in one of his studios in Hollywood...