After the sudden collapse of Crimson Creatures in 2023, Richard Stockdill (who had recently quit Lonely Trees) was left bandless, clutching a bunch of unfinished songs. First, he took up Steve Taylor (drummer and 2nd singer from Lonely Trees) on his invitation to collaborate, and, second, he recruited me, to continue with guitar, backing vocal and production.
Work progressed slowly over the next few months, until Richard met up with Martin McKendrick, provisionally as a side-project. When Martin proved to be a good fit, he became the final piece in a new writing partnership in March 2024. After 6 months’ writing and recording, the final mix of an album was completed.
But, it was decided that there was no point releasing the album into the void. The band had no gigs booked and we hadn’t rehearsed at all. It seemed that there were already a million bands releasing music and fighting for public attention. So we decided to make a couple of music videos to promote our music. The first release was a single, called Remembering Ariadne, involving the well-known Greek myth.
A couple of weeks later, we released the album, self-titled Ambassadors of Doubt, together with a music video for the album finalé, Last Minutes. There were minor rumblings around the release on internet radio, but the world remained unlit.
Rather than begin preparations for gigs, the band started working on the difficult second album. But, frustrated with slow progress, disappointed with my own contributions to the project, and the pressure of an imminent gig for which we were not prepared, I quit as guitarist (though it appears that I am still occasionally mixing new material).