The Wow! Scenario - Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus (2026) [Hi-Res]

The duo The Wow! Scenario — Graeme Wicks and comedian James Acaster — formed in 2004 in Kettering, Northamptonshire. The name came by accident: a drunk audience member tried to tell them they lacked “the X factor” but kept getting the phrase wrong, insisting they needed “the wow scenario”. For three years the musicians were convinced they would become one of the greatest bands of all time, yet they got near-empty rooms, shoes thrown at them and chases through car parks. Despite weekly singing lessons, neither their harmonies nor Acaster’s basic pitch reached the standard they wanted, and the ideas in their heads could not be realised. By late 2007 they had decided to call it quits.

That is why they approached the recording of their debut as work for themselves alone. In December 2007, with producer Chris Hamilton, who had found them on MySpace and all but begged to record their songs, they spent a month living in the studio: jazzy guitars, freewheeling drums, flat vocals and field recordings made at the airport. In January 2008 Hamilton mixed the material, the band split up, and the recordings stayed untouched.

In January 2018 the duo returned to the album, loving everything except the vocals. They planned to replace the vocal melodies with saxophone, clarinet and fiddle and release an instrumental record. Mark Brown and Guy Fletcher recorded their parts and Hamilton mixed the album a second time, but without singing the songs still sounded unfinished. In March 2023 the vocals were finally performed by Emma Daman and BC Camplight, and the songwriters heard for the first time what they had once imagined. The music had gone from “impenetrable” to “an acquired taste”. Hamilton mixed the album a third time, and by March 2025 “Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus” was complete. More than twenty years on, the duo is releasing it in 2026, risking more flying shoes, and whether anyone else will get it remains to be seen.

Tracklist:
1. The Wow! Scenario - Diving!
2. The Wow! Scenario - Once More!
3. The Wow! Scenario - Golf Socks!
4. The Wow! Scenario - Alpaca Spinner!
5. The Wow! Scenario - Reality!
6. The Wow! Scenario - Instructions!
7. The Wow! Scenario - Zacuti!
8. The Wow! Scenario - The Curse!