Prefab Sprout - I Trawl the Megahertz (Remastered) (2019) [Hi-Res]

Originally released as a Paddy McAloon solo album in 2003, the mesmerising I Trawl The Megahertz has been remastered and rebranded as a Prefab Sprout album.

Comprised of nine compositions including the 22 minute instrumental title track and the heartbreaking song Sleeping Rough, I Trawl The Megahertz stands as perhaps the most ambitious and poignant McAloon related release.

“In 1996 after recording Andromeda Heights, I started to work on a new batch of songs for an album I wanted to call ‘20th Century Magic’,” Paddy recalls. “After sidelining ‘20th Century Magic’ I started to consider another project. The title song of this new project, ‘Doomed Poets’, was a moody little number and a sort of forerunner to ‘Megahertz in terms of mood.

“One spring morning in ’99 just for the hell of it, I entered a few random notes into the sequencer of my (even then) ancient Atari computer,” Paddy explains. “I recorded a couple of further layers without listening to what had gone before. By pure good luck, when I played them back they formed a few chords that filled me with a strange sort of nostalgia for something I couldn’t name or get close to. At some point a picture started to form. That’s how Megahertz started.”

Though the record originally appeared as a solo album, it seems fitting to now classify it as a Prefab Sprout project. “I thought we could do anything”, Paddy says of those heady Prefab days. “And Megahertz is true to that spirit. The music here is of a piece with everything I’ve ever written. It’s from the heart.”

Paddy McAloon, writing, lyrics, music, production
Gerard Presencer, brass, flugelhorn, trumpet, woodwind
Robert Irvine, cello
Julian Argüelles, clarinet, saxophone
Rick Standley, double bass
Johann Sebastian Barcode, keyboards, programming
Corky Anderson, percussion
The Robert McFall Orchestra
Brian Schiele, viola
Greg Lawson, violin
Robert McFall, violin

Recorded, mixed and produced by Calum Malcolm