Dean Cass and Matt Sullivan have been playing together since 2009, when they met in Fremantle during Cass’s backpacking trip through Australia. Seventeen years later, that accumulated trust became the foundation for “Karma Waters“, their debut album as Nook & Cranny โ a record built entirely from improvised sessions with one strict rule: no stopping, no planning, no fixing mistakes afterward.
The London-based duo recorded the album’s guitar and drum tracks over a few weekends in early 2024 at Bally Studios. They’d come in with nothing prepared, press record, and start playing. Some jams stretched past 30 minutes. What you hear on “Karma Waters“, released February 1st, is what happened when two musicians who’ve shared stages in bands like Astral Lynx, Moon, and Silent Republic decided to see what their combined instincts could produce without rehearsal or second-guessing, and bend some rules of experimental music in the process.
“The intention of the album was to capture two musicians in the flow state,” they explain. “Not live in front of an audience where showmanship can take centre stage, but in the studio in complete isolation where the two musicians’ minds can blend, interact and respond to each other in real time.”
The process they settled on was deliberately restrictive. No pauses, no restarts, no correcting drum or guitar parts in post-production. They recorded around 20 jams total, then selected the ones that worked best together for the album. Sullivan added bass, synth, and samples later at his home studio Flighthouse, but the core remained untouched โ sonic blemishes included.
“Any sonic blemishes just got worked into the mix and became part of the record,” the band notes. Where one player led, the other followed. After nearly two decades of playing together, they’d developed what they call a “hive mind” โ a shorthand that made real-time musical conversation possible without verbal cues or predetermined structures.
The album draws heavily from late 60s and early 70s progressive rock, the kind of records where long melodic passages take listeners somewhere specific. Sullivan and Cass wanted to make something they’d actually want to float away on, music that resisted the constraints of streaming algorithms and playlist logic.
“We wanted to make a record that we would enjoy listening to and floating away on,” they say. “If we make music that we enjoy, then others will probably enjoy it too.”
The result blends progressive structures with exotic touches, post-rock patience and the organic interplay you get from a drum-and-bass duo expanding outward. There’s elegance in how these tracks unfold, but also room for the unexpected โ moments where the improvisation shows its seams, where the players had to respond to something neither planned.
The album’s title came from a boat moored on the canal next to Bally Studios during recording. The cover artwork โ polaroid snapshots taken around the studio and in Soho – mirrors the approach: instant, lo-fi, and mellow.
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Nook & Cranny plan to return to the studio in 2026 to record their follow-up using the same method. What they’ve proven with “Karma Waters” is that trust accumulated over 17 years can carry an album even when nothing else is certain – when the only plan is to start playing and see where it goes.
