DUBSTAR: Lost & Foundland Volume 1

Dubstar’s first album ‘Disgraceful’ is twenty five today

To celebrate, I’m releasing a solo album ‘Dubstar: Lost & Foundland Volume 1', a collection of piano reimaginings of thirteen songs I wrote for the act plus a piano version of Billy Bragg’s ‘St Swithin’s Day’.

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Back in July, someone tweeted me that Dubstar’s Stars was twenty five years old that day. I’d forgotten, completely, thought I’d missed the opportunity to mark the anniversary. No one else was doing anything, maybe I should?


Over the years since its release, many have told me I should do a new version of the song, maybe as a Marks & Spencers’ style piano ballad. I’d shied away from this idea because, well, I’ve never been that good at spotting a musical opportunity. And yet it WAS twenty five years, I should do something. So I quickly recorded a piano version on my old Yamaha CP-70B electric grand piano and put it up on YouTube to mark the anniversary of the day the song made the UK Top 40.

Later that day, Claire said ‘oh, that’s good, you should do another twenty five’. She meant write another twenty five blog posts, the writing notes I’d included on www.dubstar.com. The explanation I’d given for Stars had caught the imagination of Dubstar fans on social media, so why not do some more?

But I thought she meant do piano versions of another twenty five songs I’d written for the act. Er…ok, that’s a huge amount of work, a crazy amount of work. By the time I’d realised my misunderstanding, I was too excited by the idea to turn back.

So everyday for twenty five days I spent an hour playing & recording an old Dubstar song, then immediately put it up on YouTube with writing notes, explaining the providence & inspiration being the song. It was an extraordinary experience…many of these songs I hadn’t played since they were written, some I’d not thought about in years, decades. And with every song I found a melody that I could fall in love with again. So I did. And when the ‘Dubstar 25’ project came to a close with Day I See You Again, I kept going…


Today fourteen of these recordings see their official worldwide release. From ‘The Gender We Lose’ that Chris & I included on our cassette album “Gear” as The Joans back in 1992, through to ‘So Say We All’, the song that should have closed our 4th (or 5th) album as Dubstar. I hope you enjoy them.



I must also give a big thank you once again to Roger Newbrook for his fantastic photography that accompanies this release.

Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

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