VA - Not From Where I'm Standing (2020)

Come Play With Me proudly presents a collection of 20 Bond themes covered by current and former members of The Wedding Present. 100% of the profits from its sale will be donated to the 'Campaign Against Living Miserably' (CALM).

Questioned about the origins of the project, David Gedge of The Wedding Present said: "Where do ideas like this come from? Well, I can tell you that this one was born during a soundcheck in New Zealand, in 2013, when the band were playing around with the main melody of the classic Bond theme 'You Only Live Twice'. We decided then that, one day, we should probably attempt to cover this amazing song. We ended up doing just that dur-ing the recording sessions for our 'Going, Going' album in Studios La Fabrique (Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France). And that was that. For a while, anyway. During a later tour, drummer Charles Layton was driving the van and I was sitting in the front passenger seat. On journeys like these Charlie would often plant little seeds of ideas into my mind, knowing that I would go away, think about it, and then return with some kind of master plan. "You should release a compilation of Bond songs," he declared. And that was all that he needed to say, really. Most of the themes from the Bond films would effortlessly feature in a list of my favourite ever pieces of music, so I was never not going to be excited by the idea of re-imaginings of twenty of them! One of the defining moments of my career was when I per-formed with the BBC Big Band in 2009 and got to meet Derek Watkins, who had played the lead trumpet on every single one of the Bond themes up until his death in 2013. And then came another idea. Each of the artists on this proposed compilation would be required to have a physical connection to Cinerama or The Wedding Present. I liked the unifying feel of that. I suppose it appealed to the collector in me. None of the artists I approached asked for payment for their track and so the obvious thing to do was to make this a benefit album. The 'CALM' organisation was suggested to me as a charity that's doing great work and, af-ter we'd heard more, we were keen to support it. Throw in a beautiful sleeve design and here, seven years after that fateful sound check in Auckland, you have The Wedding Pre-sent and their lovely friends saluting the astounding music of Bond. James Bond.".

The Wedding Present are a band that have always been keen to explore new ways to showcase their music but this album also serves as a fascinating insight into the strength and diversity of the musicians that have been members as well as revealing their fa-vourite Bond tunes!

In addition to the expected contributions from Cinerama and The Wedding Present, the album features a first 'super-group' outing for 'Sleeper featuring David Gedge' and also a solo rendition of Louis Armstrong's classic 'We Have All The Time In The World' by David himself.

There's also, potentially, the first-ever Ukrainian-language cover of a Madonna track!