A very Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!

We thank you all for your support and kind words. It’s great to see South on Myspace – a big thanks to Wayne for all his work on that and on livebetweenthelines.com and south.uk.net, along with Jen and Trish, a big thank you!

You probably know this has been a quiet year for South, but behind closed doors we've been working hard! Here's the story...

The year began on a shit note for us by being dropped by Sanctuary (our UK label) who, apart from Jennifer Ivory in the marketing department, did very little to get behind With The Tides. It seems we still hadn't found the right home for our music. We also had to leave our Kentish Town studio, which, to be fair, we all wanted to leave. The place was a dump and we couldn't get inspired to write or record, our 16 track recorder was on its last legs, and we knew we wanted to build a new studio and make the "difficult third album" ourselves.

The good news for us is that we still had good support in the US and from our manager John Brice (who is the best fucking manager and someone we are lucky to have on our side). After Kinetic Records went down (another label that went bust after we signed to them!) a lot of the people who worked there went to jobs at other labels or started new labels. We have nothing but love for the people that worked at Kinetic. They went through a lot of shit when the label went down and we thank them all! Young American Recordings was set up by Rocco (who worked at Kinetic) and his friend Josh. They signed us for the US in March 2005 and we went about finding a new studio and getting on eBay!

The first place we looked at was perfect!! The studio was set up by a producer who had to make a quick exit (for reasons best left unknown) and it was big enough to have two control rooms on a live room and a living space at the back! We had always wanted to set up a studio with Will Harper, who is a long time friend and collaborator. Will is the one you see whenever we go on the road – he's the one behind the keyboards with the big hair! Will and his friends Tom Phillips and Dan Radclyffe were in the early stages of writing and demoing songs for a new project called The Brian Jacket Letdown. So we all moved into the new studio. We set about working on the new South album and Will set about work on The Brian Jacket Letdown.

The next stage for us buying the equipment we needed to record the album ourselves, and starting to figure out the technical shit (we got a Pro Tools system that both the previous albums were recorded on). So we knew the basics, only this time there wasn't gonna be the Genius that is Dave Eringa at the helm! So we called Dave up and said ‘Help!’ The first track we recorded for the album was A Place In Displacement and it was produced by Dave Eringa. He showed us the ropes and really helped get us running. Dave is another one of those amazing people we have been lucky enough to meet on our Journey and really do owe him a big thank you for all his help and support. Then it was up to us.

We had some songs written from our time in Kentish Town at the end of 2004 and we knew the first few songs we tried probably wouldn't turn out great because there was so much to learn on the technical side. What we learnt early on is it’s very hard to keep the creative side balanced with the production side because you gotta be sure you’re recording everything well and also getting the best takes, and when your miking a drum kit with 16 mikes this can be very difficult!

We were right – the first two attempts at producing were pretty shit, but then things started to work. Brett really started to take control of the production side and the sounds we were getting were great. It felt like things were falling into place. We picked up half-written songs, collected our thoughts and ideas, and for the first time I found myself writing lyrics in the studio with Jamie and Brett. We all really focused and found ourselves working on an album that sounds nothing like any of the previous records – we were pushing each other forward. It also felt like a less filtered process because it was only the three of us in a room trying to make it work. Brett also did an amazing job on mixing the record.

We only played two full South gigs this year – one at ULU and the other at Somerset House. We got to play some new songs and it really helped us understand what we wanted from the new record from a live perspective. We also did a number of acoustic shows, including one last night with The Brian Jacket Letdown.

Adventures In The Underground Journey To The Stars took eight months to record from start to finish. It will be released in the US by Young American Recordings on 4th April 2006. We have also found a small UK label called Genepool to put out A Place In Displacement in the UK on the 16th Jan 2006, and hopefully we can sign a proper deal with them to put out the album in the UK next year.

We also realize how many people are still out there gunning for us and want to see us live next year. We promise to do all we can to get to as many different places as possible, do as many shows as we can, and say hello to all the people who are out there supporting us. It’s great to know you’re all still there enjoying the music and you don't know how much we appreciate it.

WE THANK YOU XXXXXXX

Let’s hope for a peaceful new year.

Joel x