Adam Snyder is a familiar visitor to these shores, both in his former role as keyboards player in Mercury Rev during their Deserter’s Songs renaissance and as a solo artist in his own right. Snyder’s career is about to take fully fledged shape with the release of Across The Pond, his debut solo album which will initially be exclusively available in Ireland on David Gray’s HTI label.

“The basic plan is to release it here and play here and then release it other places next year,” explains Adam. “Our respective managers have been friends for years. David was away on tour so the opportunity arose to use his South London studio to do this record. Its worked out beautifully because I’ve never had a bad time here in Ireland and I have a lot of friends here and it is always a lot of fun to play the shows. People are generally supportive and seem to like the style of music I do so I just keep coming back. Now that’s it is finally in the can, I’m just smiling all the time, I’m very happy about it. A couple of people have told me they really like it so that is really nice!”

And such praise is richly deserved. Across The Pond is a big-hearted debut full of fantastic songs from the hilarious (‘On Hold’) to the very sad and poignant (‘Daddy’s Song’). Its crowning achievement is how such sparse and minimal acoustically based songs are allowed to breath through the embellishment of a rich but very subtle production.

“I think the arrangement was always very important in achieving that,” believes Adam. “It was quite simple as I paid very close attention to what was working on. If it wasn’t working it just wasn’t going to go on there. Recording in London was very interesting because I was a student there and I obviously went back there a lot with the band. In my student days, I was based way out in North West London and I’d come into Soho to try and find out what was going on. This time I lived in Soho, right in the thick of it all on Berwick Street (home to some of the best record stores in the UK) and migrating to South London each day to record, so it gave a whole new perspective on things.”

In orchestrating his own album, Adam found the recording process a lot more involved and demanding than his previous experience of recording with a band.

“It was a very intense period,” observes Snyder. “Rather than work for a week or two and then have a period of reflection it was kinda like every day for eight hours a day. Also, being in control of the project was different. Obviously, I was in control of little demos and stuff before, but this was almost like making a movie without the pictures but still being the director. It does sound the way I wanted it too. Its not an accident it sounds the way it does. The process of getting to that sound was very frustrating and I was banging my head against the wall a couple of nights there, but overall it was well worth it!”

Finally, there is a weird coincidental symmetry to Across The Pond and a new Mercury Rev album being released almost simultaneously. How does Adam feel about both records being stocked in stores at the same time.

“I feel really good about that because I think the timing is right. It was a secret goal of mine to get something out by the time the Rev record was coming out, not at all because it was some kind of competition or anything, but because there really is this wonderful circus when a Rev record comes out and everyone goes out and has a great time. I knew I would be sacrificing that in working with my own stuff and be sitting at home twiddling my thumbs! We met up in London when they were over doing promotion, and we all got together and got drunk and celebrated our endeavours. Grasshopper plays on one of my songs, so it’s not like our mutual involvement with each other is over.”

Across The Pond is out now on HTI