The Most

This is The Mostar Diving Club, the first solo project from the singer and song writer of Obi, Damian Katkhuda. Published by Chrysalis, The Mostar Diving Club is an outlet for some of Damian's more quirky and unconventional tunes and songs, and a chance for him to experiment with different instruments, unusual arrangements and his trade mark melodies. The songs on his latest offering, "Don Your Suit of Lights" were written in a woodland farmhouse in the south of France, isolated and tranquil, reflecting the mood of this charming debut solo album. Produced by Will Worsley, who was responsible for much of Obi's early output (including the single "Somewhere Nicer," which was a-listed on radio 2 and virgin and led to several European tours and festival performances) the album travels through many musical genres and contains everything from large scale productions "Vagabonds and Clowns," to just a simple guitar and vocal recorded in the garden, "There Goes My Mind (Plastic Girls)." Recorder orchestras, violins with trumpet attachments, bowed saws, accordions, harmoniums, glockenspiels, banjos, auto harps, and ukuleles are just a few of the instruments that Damian and producer Will tackled during the making and recording of this highly eclectic album. Amongst the many critics that have praised Damian's work, his Obi albums were described as "keys to the kingdom of lovely... an almost flawless example of up and downbeat folk pop story telling" in the Times. Mojo described "The Magic Land of Radio" as "utterly charming .... a melodic master-class", and metro said Diceman Lopez had "a sense of dreamy transportation to somewhere else. a lovely work." The name, The Mostar Diving Club is taken from a town in Bosnia, where his fathers family hail from; as a right of passage into adulthood, young men dive from an old bridge into a very shallow river below, a distance of some thirty meters, get it wrong and you are in serious trouble. Having made several trips to this part of the world, both before and after the war he has met with the divers and seen them do their stuff. The album "Don Your Suit of Lights" will be out early next year.