2024 marks 40 years of Pete Astor making records, a suitable anniversary point at which to take stock and double back on songs that first appeared on records by Astor-fronted combos such as Creation Records trailblazers The Loft and The Weather Prophets and Matador recording artists The Wisdom of Harry, as well as selections from solo albums that appeared on labels such as Danceteria and Static Caravan.
Astor’s motivation for Tall Stories & New Religions, his new album, which will be out on Tapete Records March 15th, 2024, is manifold: some songs are effectively re-examined in the way one might linger over a resonant picture from a box of old photographs -connecting with the essence of a younger self-, other songs are newly recast in wiser and more reflective hues, while others simply demanded exhumation from wilfully opaque, lo fi non- production.
The songs chosen are not the obvious ones – there’s no Up the Hill and Down the Slope or Almost Prayed here – but have been selected for more interesting, often esoteric, reasons.

Astor is accompanied by an estimable band of co-conspirators, evolving out of many hours spent playing music together on records and at shows over the last decade. They are drummer Ian Button, (Death in Vegas, Papernut Cambridge, Go Kart Mozart), bassist Andy Lewis (Paul Weller, Soho Radio and Blow Up DJ), guitarist Wilson Neil Scott (Summerhill, Felt, Everything But the Girl) and keyboardist/ multi-instrumentalist/ producer Sean Read (Dexys, Mark Lanegan, Dave Gahan, Iggy Pop, Manic Street Preachers, Beth Orton, Chrissie Hynde…).
Together they’ve revisited these lost gems of songs in a manner that has allowed Astor to balance the way that they still make sense to him now, looking both to the future and to that big and interesting new country, the past.
Model Village is the first single from the album and it’s out today.

What Pete Says: “There was a time in my life a few years ago when some things very central to my life started to fall apart at the same time as some very important things came together. Time passing, some old wounds healing, and battles resolved brought this song about. I don’t know why but Model Villages always seem like the saddest places, the way a world and the lives in them are presented in a still and miniature order – the sadness comes from the fact that the world is never ever like that.
I remember being 11 and one of my main pastimes was the hours and hours that I spent making plastic models. I clearly remember, as well being obsessed with finding the correct German camouflage for a Panzer IV, also coming under the spell of music – Slade and others (but mainly Slade) were starting to fill up my head. My concern then was ‘which way will this go? Will it be music or military modelling?’. Not long after, the answer was very clear. That was the way it goes with the teenage years of course – things moved very fast. Anyway, maybe a comfortable world being built in miniature was coming back to me with Model Village.“

The Album:

Tall Stories & New Religions

Tracklisting

A1) Model Village
A2) Ladies And Gentlemen
A3) Chinese Cadillac
A4) The Emperor, The Dealer And The Birthday Boy
A5) She Comes From The Rain A6) Nancy True Knot

B1) Caesar Boots
B2) Head Over Heels
B3) Marsh Blues
B4) Emblem
B5) Disney Queen
B6) On Top Above The Driver

Model Village is out now. The album Tall Stories & New Religions will be out on March 15th on Tapete Records. Look HERE for more information on Pete Astor.