Rick Rizzo believes that Eleventh Dream Day’s albums have “meandered down some path. We keep getting farther along the road and I still don’t know where the hell we are”. This is a sentiment that is testament to the ever-changing sound of a band who have truly grown, through early terse garage rock sounds towards the fluid exploratory sound of their eighth album (released earlier this year).

In fact, ‘Eighth’ sees the band stretching itself beyond anything that has already passed, with John McEntire (of Tortoise fame) doing a production job that opens out the sound yet further than he did on ‘Ursa Major’. Rizzo suggests that this partnership works because, “for the most part, John lays back and finds a way to allow the band to relax and express its personality”. A process which is fairly vital to a band which has become engrossed in taking the little time it ever has together to go into the studio and “push the envelope a little, shake things up” - usually without rehearsing the songs Rizzo has written for the band. “To tell you the truth,” he offers, “I think it’s the only way for a band that’s been around as long as we have to function in a way that still holds our interest”.

So, don’t be expecting a gruelling tour schedule anytime soon. EDD play live rarely, “one show a year mostly, because it’s so damned hard to find a window of opportunity”. All the band members are involved in far more active projects - Freakwater, Tortoise, Palace - and Rizzo guesses that Eleventh Dream Day will fall quiet for a while after this year’s little flurry of activity, “I anticipate these activities will sap all of our Eleventh Dream Day capacities for quite a while. Time will tell just who has fell and who’s been left behind...”.

11th Dream Day were talking to Drew, in June 1997.