Iain "Underneath the studio on Edinburgh's Royal Mile is a shop called Golden, it's owner Tom McCarthy has been responsible for introducing artists either directly or indirectly to Offbeat. Tom introduced percussionist Dave Edwards from the US to the studio and he and I collaborated on several projects over the Summer of 1998. Dave had recorded an amazing percussionist from Senegal called Hamed Kane on his 4 track portastudio. When I expressed an interest in meeting Hamed, it wasn't long after that I had embarked on an album project with him. Hamed had made his own drum set of 3 khin drums and the first thing he laid down was him playing the basic bassdrum part along with the lead vocal. We did this for every song on the album and got it in a a matter of a few hours. It sounded strangely disconnected until Hamed played drum no2, the rhythm part, again for every track on the album, then it all started to come together. When he played the solo part on top I was literally blown away by how good it sounded. I realised I was in the presence of a real drum master. The tunings of each drum combined to create a truly musical drum sound. I then handed him a shaker to see what it sounded like and after we both agreed it added a nice zing at the top end, he played all the way through the album, again without making a single mistake. Their wasn't a lot of talking going on in this session as Hamed could barely speak English at the time but he managed to express his interest in hearing some Bass and Keyboards on the track. Initially I was concerned that because it was all played Acapella so far that the track wouldn't be in tune and could drift during the song. When I picked up the Bass it was bang on in tune and didn't drift at all during the recording. The album was recorded and mixed in three weeks and after getting a dirstibution deal Worldwide through Sterns music the album quickly became established as a classic Bayefall album. Hamed and I appeared on many radio sessions with BBC Scotland, Uk and the World Service as well as playing 2 gigs at Edinburgh's Bongo Club".