As a wife and husband team, the project is imbibed with a rare synergy and they quickly stumbled upon a unique and almost magical song-writing method: deciphering strange incantations played in reverse, and what the unusual, twisting cadences of those vocalisations were telling them. They imparted strange tales of rattling drums and poisoned hemlocks.

 

This radical departure in the song-writing process was prompted when Ali & Jeff’s kids used the ‘reverse’ function on a family video rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ created for a relative. One of the most recognisable melodies in the world suddenly became strange and other worldly, inspiring Alison & Jeff to explore this as a novel way to unearth unexpected melodic pathways. They started by improvising melodies into a recorder, singing stream-of-consciousness words. While listening to those recordings played back in reverse, they would both sit together noting any interesting melodies and transcribing the sounds they had sung, to see if they sounded akin to actual words when heard backwards.