Visiting the home of Hamstell Ridware, one half of Sundae Club, is like stepping into a musical museum. There's a Melatron, a Wurlwitzer Piano and something called a VCS3. There are a variety of other synthersisers and electronic organs from the past several decades including, much to my delight, a Pheramin.

Pheramins were one of the first electronic instruments. You play them by waving your hand above them. The note produced changes pitch depending on the position of your hand. HR, as he signs his e mails, bought these instruments when them were considered unfashionable, using them for previous bands' work.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again:

Now he is in Sundae Club – a project which started out "just to keep these things alive", he explains fondly. But Sundae Club is more than just an excuse for collecting bizarre electronica. It is a musical collective that thrives on imaginative ideas and great tunes.

HR has set up his home with the enthusiasm of a kid designing a sweet shop. He leaps around from room to room to show me a new instrument, play me a new track, show me an idea on his computer or dig out a new CD.

He plays through the Sundae Club album, punctuating it with play-throughs of other Sundae Club tracks and songs that have influenced or inspired Sundae Club tracks.

Samples:

One such influential album is a spoken word record demonstrating the sounds of synthersisers. Hamstell tells me that he and musical partner Dr. C.D. Mille have sampled it to produce a track.

He digs out an Open University L.P. that they have done similar things to. Then he produces a track called "Butterfly Wings" which Sundae Club have remixed. And then there's the Bollywood song that they adapted and renamed "Harold"...

Commercial Breakthrough:

Sundae Club have already had some success. Their music has been used in the background on GMTV and they often take on the likes of Muse and Lemon Jelly to produce soundtracks for beer and car commercials. Thanks to the help of a publisher, they have been able to arrange for collaborations with people they respect. Now, all they want is to get signed.

How did they come up with the name, I wonder. "The name came from the fact that we always meet up on a Sunday," HR replies. "Only we found out that a rap band from the late eighties was called Sunday Club. But there wasn't a band called Sundae Club."

There Ain't No Party...:

Rather cheekily, they adopted the URL s-club.co.uk for their web site, just months before a certain other band removed the 7 from their name.

"We've probably had quite a few little girls looking for information on Rachel, Hannah and Bradley," HR adds. Maybe they've got some new fans that way.

Strange Stories:

HR is keen to tell me that some tracks have a very bizarre history. "Great Big Homborg Hats" is one such example. It came about thanks to hearing someone tell them a story about gangsters during the Second World War who claimed to be Conscientious Objectors.

HR and the Dr. noted down some of the names, got actor Eric Shilling to read out the story and the song was born.

Life on the Canals:

Another story involves "The Brummagem Fly". "I got a phone call from my writing partner," HR explains, "he said he'd got hold of a record called "Life on the Canals" and this was going to be our next track." HR was unconvinced until he heard it.

It was an old man recalling his days working on the canals where "Fly Boats" were given priority on the canals to send messages up and down the canals. One such boat headed to Birmingham and was therefore called "The Brummagem Fly".

Next...:

But what next for the recording duo? HR seems certain that another album will follow. On which such tracks as "Harold" (the Bollywood track) and "Good People" (the Open University sample) should appear. And there will probably be further collaborations with Sam Holmes.

But the main aim seems to be to have fun. "If it ceases to be fun, we won't do it," HR explains. "We do everything with our tongues firmly in our cheeks. We like to be silly. But we take our silliness very seriously."

One thing they seem to be very enthusiastic about is their ad work. "It would be great to see one of our tracks used on an advert," HR says. Indeed it would.

A Cat Called Cat:

On my way out, I am greeted by HR's cat. "What are you doing, Cat?" he asks. Does he really call his cat "Cat", I ask. "We've tried lots of names, but none of them stuck," explains Emily, Hamstell's fiancée. So Cat, it is then.

It has been a fascinating, if slightly odd evening. But the oddness does not end here. Later, I go home and, just out of curiosity, type in the name "Hamstell Ridware" into a search engine. It seems I have been talking to a small Staffordshire village all evening.

13/08/04 - First published on www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire on this link