We Speak Music

Freddie & The Scenarios release debut album

Published

3 years ago

March 27, 2023

Don Reed

Former Vaccines’ lead guitarist Freddie Cowan created Freddie & The Scenarios with the help of some of the best in Mexico City’s incredible music scene, whilst also reuniting with Vaccines’ original drummer Pete Robertson, recently more known for his production work with Beabadoobee, Nasty Cherry, Crawlers; The Vaccines’ keyboardist Tim Lanham, Laura Marling’s bassist Nick Pini, iconic Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei (Kill Bill), and producer Ethan Johns (Paul McCartney, Kings Of Leon, Ryan Adams) on percussion.

Freddie & The Scenarios is nothing short of a supergroup. On record and future live plans, the line-up is a musician’s dream, and the record vibes seamlessly across genres, creating its own form of indie, dream pop, world soul sounds that’s parts Beck, and Bach. Not totally, but you get the idea, all the songs were written by Freddie, and he conducts the band as though a full orchestra.

The album consists of twelve tracks of joy, pain and just about everything in between. Freddie’s guitar is flawless, and hopping for the first time onto vocals delivered with an earnestness that touches genuinely. Backed by a brass section and other musicians, Freddie describes working with Vaccine’s old drummer and other past and new friends as follows,

“Pete is such an incredible drummer. He’s phenomenal – calm and so conversational, he just speaks with the drums. In fact, all the musicians on this album were people I’d just unconsciously earmarked over the years. Ethan Johns, the producer, played percussion and he’s the best percussionist probably in the country. Then we went to Mexico and recorded the brass section with players there because we thought if we got a bunch of English brass players, it wouldn’t sound like what we’re looking for. It’s this certain sound. The same way there’s Mexican boxing, there’s a certain fire to it you can’t really replicate.”

And it was, indeed whilst living in a curious time in Mexico City in 2019, Freddie had several serendipitous encounters with some of the musicians living and working there, especially around the city’s Centro Historico neighbourhood – Diego Herrera from Mexico’s legendary Caifanes, who has become a mentor, resident string and brass arranger Dan Zlotnik, and Moises Garcia, the trumpet player for Mexican hero, Juan Gabriel, among many others. These encounters inspired ‘Answer Machine’, a celebration of creative freedom and collaboration, life, growth, and restoration.

The album was recorded in both Mexico City and Somerset and somehow captures both perfectly.

After the album’s release, The Scenarios will tour Mexico in April, with plans to bring the live show to the UK later this year. Freddie explains,

“I want to do a small amount of shows and do them really well and make it really, really interesting, the music business in the ‘60s and ‘70s was much more based around records and when people did play shows, they were amazing. So I only want to play a small amount of shows with the best people.”

‘Answer Machine’ is out now via Ivy RecRods.

We Speak Music

Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’

Published

21 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Don Reed

Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.

‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.

The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.

The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:

Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”

About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.

We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”

The album and full-length film will be released on the 5^th of June on Monotreme Records.

Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.