This is an album that gives off an impression of unstable hilarity, as if perhaps the two makers of it – Nick Power from The Coral and Mark McKowski one half of The Lost Brothers – have been celebrating their birthdays, alone.

I hear other people in it – Jack Nitzsche, Tom Waits, John Lurie, and the sound of strange neighbours and their strange sounds at strange hours – but naming names won't help us get to the crux of it. And it is an IT. An IT of an album - and not a hit. Career suicide comes to mind, but who has a career in music anymore? 

They – Nick and Mark – have channelled the moment the mouth shows its insides. The answered shape of laughter. The never-ending scream. The agony of orgasm, feral instinct and the wild origins of a cry revealing the psychological collapse of a tongue with no answers and a dentist peering into the glitter and colour of that which lies beyond the lips. Therein, lurking, we have throat. The frightening beauty of throat. We're talking lap-dancing music for the animal world.

Most of the questions below were asked under duress. It's not as if writing this piece will get me anywhere. Quite the opposite; I feel like being associated with THROAT may lead to trouble, or worse, ridicule. 

Part of me feels as if I should change his answers, or misspell certain words, to make him look like a fool, or a lamb to the slaughter. This is what THROAT does to you. It grabs you by the throat. It makes you speak in a different tongue. It's the paradoxical darkness of the dentist’s light, shining into your eyes. But no, I'll leave his words alone. If he is bonkers enough to release this album, then let him have his say. It's not as if I like him, anyway. 

THROATQUIZ 

Something about THROAT reminds me of old toy shops. The sort where you'd leave with a plastic monkey mask but want much more. 

Hopefully. I’d like us to be like that range of fake Turtles figures from the market in the 90s. ‘Turtles Fighters’ they were called. Leonardo had a fork. 

How frightening was it to not know your way around secondary school the first time you landed there? And the noises of the canteen. The thunderous clatter. And the power of the dinner ladies. 

I was secretly terrified of seniors. I went to an all-boys grammar. It was like something from the Victorian era. All the dinner ladies wore the same trainers: Reebok Step. Later, at the height of Coral fame, I wore Reebok Step, too. Wore them for years, on TV - Top of the Pops: Reebok Step. CDUK: Reebok Step. It’s like they were a force field that I could hide from the ensuing and unwanted flash of fame I found myself in. My girlfriend at the time, she said, why you always wearing those dinner lady shoes? 

Why do we stop throwing snowballs after a certain age?

One ice-bomb to the ear and it’s game over. You’re Alex from Cutter’s Way. 

My Dad once told me to varnish my conker, to strengthen it, but mine only looked like it had a spray tan, and it was demolished within seconds of its first schoolyard duel. It's these kinds of demoralising experiences that are plugged into the core of THROAT for me. 

Disappointment haunts THROAT. It was written in lockdown, mostly. Mark was between bands and the Coral had landed their best-selling album for years, but we couldn’t tour or earn a living off it. Out of pure exasperation Mark sent me the THROAT title track. I was hooked. Every frustration was poured into it. People seemed to connect to it, surprisingly. We’re thinking about hiring a billboard in Derry, a cheap billboard in Derry that says, IT’S OK… IF YOU LIKE THROAT. 

Which part of England do you go to when you die and what is on the TV, playing permanently?  

Pimbo

Hollyoaks. 

(If you’ve been bad). 

Did you ever befriend a child at school so you could just raid his fridge?

Paul Bagley. He had Streets of Rage 2 on the Megadrive. He wouldn’t let me play it. I had to sit there watching him for hours. He kept doing that special move where all the fire comes down. I was trying to tell him that whenever you do that it loses you a bit of your own life, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s dead now. 

Is hell round or another shape?

Prefer not to say. 

Have mass shootings replaced the serial killer in the criminal chronicles of America?

I’d have to say yes. That and online smut have tempered the original spirit. Good or bad, I don’t know. 

We need to make Bananaman into a live action film. Fancy doing the soundtrack?

Absolutely, but make sure there’s a banana-budget. 

Is THROAT the soundtrack to people being given a chance to read their own tombstones?

I’d like to think so. Can I use that?

Would you agree that the hoover is a hellish sound but not one to be completely frightened of? I get the feeling nature hates a hoover. 

Lifting your feet for the Hoover is one of life’s great obnoxious pleasures. In which case, I’m pro-vac. 

The Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, believed that eternity lay in reach of those capable of staring, unblinking, at the seas deranging expanses. I believe him. How do you think THROAT fit into this theory - because they do

I like that idea of staring at some sort of unending void to make sense of my own confused existence. The sky over the refinery in Runcorn is a good one, like our version of the Northern Lights. Plus, I’ve always been attracted to helplessness and hopelessness in music, whether it’s Son House or Sunhouse. 

Do you think we have put too much faith in clockwork? Maybe humanity would have been better off seeing the clock as a crouton, as something that isn't really needed. Is there any need for a crouton? Is there any need for dough balls? I know there is need for bacon, but what of these two other foods?

I decided a while ago to stop farting around in areas I didn’t need to be in. For instance, I’m never going to make a hip-hop album, am I? (I never was) or play the traditional 8 role in Liverpool’s midfield. So, the croutons and doughballs of my life got binned. There’s not much for people to smile about these days, I thought, so get your message across and start something else. THROAT is one person in a bare white room dreaming an extended dream. In fact, it’s two people in Bella Italia on a Wowcher, sharing a main. 

What was the colour of sky before we - humans - dropped our bags off on earth? The original colour, the first colour of sky?

LFC Candy away kit quicksilver. 

THROAT is also the feeling of thinking somebody has just called your name out. You look around to see who it is. But it’s nobody. Nobody has called your name. Your own head called your name. And now hope has turned into a ghastly reality, like seeing yourself naked in a full-length hotel mirror.

Had that exact feeling before, walking through town.

If, for whatever reason, you want to buy this album then you can get it here:

https://av8recordsltd.co.uk/product/throat-lp/