Hugo Race music & projects - Helixed recordings & films
SPEED OF THE STARS
While Italy dreamed… through summers of haze
Easy Action Records LP/CD
Dist. CARGO
Release date: 19 September 2025
Following on from the 2023 vinyl released of their debut album, Steve Kilbey of The Church and Frank Kearns of Cactus World News return with a brand new Speed Of The Stars longplayer.
While Italy Dreamed… through summers of haze sees the band expanded to a quartet, joined once again by drummer Barton Price, formerly of Aussie chart stars Models, along with musician and songwriter Hugo Race, who also produced the album.
“I have always considered the first Speed Of The Stars record one of the very best records I’ve ever been involved in,” says Steve. “It was made over many years and in different studios and took quite awhile to come out. A lot of people have told me over the years how much they’ve enjoyed that record. So it was always on the cards that Frank and I would join forces again to do the follow-up although we never had planned exactly when that would be.”
It was a few years later, when Steve was reading Hugo’s memoir Road Series that the seeds of a collaboration were sown. Steve reached out to Hugo, who suggested a studio he’d been involved with, Puccini Floating Music Academy on a boat on a lake at Torre del Lago near Pisa. Beginning in April ’23, the four lock in straight away and begin songwriting and recording. It comes out of the ether easily: Frank with his soulful, cosmic orchestral guitar technique. Hugo adding his guitar and throwing in oblique slabs of ambience, Barton across both rock drumming and orchestral percussion. Steve plucking away on his six-string bass and guiding the deep changes of the music as he always does, while the lyrics and melodies began to percolate in his head. While Italy Dreamed… was born.
Across the timezones of many continents the four connected over two years and worked together to create the final soundscape and experience that is While Italy Dreamed…: Frank conjured beautiful and strange sounds from his guitar and his harmoniser effects box. Hugo threw in electronic squalls and bird noises and distant voices. Barton added composed string arrangements. Steve let it all be, his bass parts flowed down the line and his words, as always, queued up in his head and landed beautifully though his voice. The final mix was left to Aussie mix maestro Ted Howard, whose work also adorns The Church’s latterday masterpieces The Hypnogogue and Eros Zeta And the Perfumed Guitars.
So, what does it all mean?
Frank: “Making this album was a totally immersive, other worldly experience, the music emerging out of the mythical mediterranean ether.”
“To me it’s a journey through Italy in no particular linear or temporal way,” says Steve. “It takes in Percy Shelley and Mr Bellini and the Mad Poet and Puccini and all the trains and the lakes and cities and the marble-tipped mountains of Tuscany. It begins with the arrival of the Englishman and travels through tempestuous love affairs and strange episodes and adventures and winds up like all good operas with everything reconciled and all put to rest. I trust you will enjoy what we have prepared for you with this record during those magical two weeks in the houseboat on the lake in Italy.”
Hugo Race is a prolific writer, musician and producer with his own band Hugo Race & Fatalists and numerous others.
One of Australia’s most successful session drummers, Barton Price has played on numerous hit records including Models’ No.1 single and No.3 album Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight. More recently focusing on modern classical composition, he’s also a sought-after string arranger.
https://www.facebook.com/speedofthestars
For interview requests, promos and guestlists, please contact Gerry Ranson at MuleFreedom PR Gerry@mulefreedom.co.uk
+44(0)7792 897035 mulefreedom.co.uk