Silver Wheel Of Prayer

A sister record to the "The Allegory Of Hearing" (on Drunken Fish), Silver Wheel has 7 complimentary instrumental tracks, made mostly with Roy's trusty 4 track and Tiesco 6 string. A couple of tracks are dominated by his Farfisa organ, which provides a gliding drone and waver on which to hang titles like "for the disoriented" and "for the mortified." The longest track here is the "for a small blue orb," a simple strum that builds into a hypnotic pattern over 16 minutes. "The album is dedicated to Geoff Davies and Annie Leadbetter and their son Jess, who, without seeming to worry what they were in for, welcomed me into their house and their lives at 12 Buckingham Ave, Liverpool in 1982. The longest track on this recording was first sketched out in their front room on a black Korean acoustic guitar which I christened "Rosebud". It has taken way too long to finish the sketch and to say thanks, but you really did feed my soul and I am grateful for it."

Recorded during the same sessions that produced The Allegory of Healing (and mixed at the same time as that album some months later), Silver Wheel of Prayer isn't so much a companion piece as its own particular, self-contained effort.