Joe was no slouch, rather a workaholic, compelled to write a piece of music a day, by now working in LA writing for film, documentaries and commercials.

I can’t recall why it took so long to come out. Its tone was determined by the release of the single ‘No Longer Living In Your Shadow’ (the white Jaguar guitar in the video is the very same used by Rudy in A.R. Ultimately ditching the sessions idea but drawing on a vast archive of unreleased demos, a new album was planned instead, the very personal and somewhat cathartic Futures (decided of course on 14 February 2013). Not only was I surprised that Joe remembered our previous brief crossing of paths but he also immediately engaged in the idea of a self-funded independent re-kindling of some back catalogue flames. The second time it occurred to me to contact Joe was during a headphone walk to work through palatial Tottenham (April 2010) whilst re-listening to the two John Peel sessions Butterfly Child had recorded (transmissions 1 March 1992 and 1 January 1994) and deciding it was time they were released. That third LP was 1998’s Soft Explosives.

On the invite of the US label Hit It! to make an album with them he relocated and stayed for a decade. Along with another two EPs by Papa Sprain (led by Joe’s musical co-conspirator and Belfast friend Gary McKendry) it seemed as if a new sound lab of blissful melodies combined with dissonance had seeped into pop, immersive but panoramic.īeing a besotted (is there any other kind?) Butterfly Child fan myself the encounter was limited to a relatively sheepish, 'What you up to?' It turned out that by then Joe had already sought to escape the “woefully uninspiring” barrage of Britpop, swiftly falling in love with Chicago. Prior Joe had recorded his first two records, the Toothfairy EP (1991) and the Eucalyptus EP (1992) for H.Ark!, Rudy’s own independent label.

Freefall by Cassidy London