Robert Scott is a world-wise man. In a prolific 20 year music career he’s travelled the globe and recorded with several seminal New Zealand bands – as the bass player for Flying Nun’s original breakthrough band, The Clean, singer/guitarist in our long-serving guitar-poppers, The Bats, and lately as the driving force behind The Magick Heads.

He’s written thousands of songs (as Roy Colbert’s accompanying bio testifies) and his discography stretches over at least a dozen albums by these bands and his other projects such as the Weeds and Electric Blood.

He’s also about as down to earth as Dunedin-ites come – and this first solo album is a testament to that. The Creeping Unknown is a mostly instrumental trip into Robert’s version of the South Island countryside – it’s vaguely gothic atmospheres displayed through the album title and songs like "Creek Country", "Fog and Wind" and "When Shade Was Made".

Fans – of which there are many, worldwide – will recognise musical flavours similar to the percolating instrumental odditties on The Clean’s Unknown Country and other acclaimed albums like Roy Montgomery’s Scenes From A South Island. The Creeping Unknown is a sweetly spooky little grower that suits any occasion, impressive in its range of moods but most of all when haunting piano lines meld into guitar fragments that have never sounded so soothing!

Around half of the album was recorded last winter at Consultancy House, Dunedin, with the remainder recorded at David Kilgour’s home during the summer. David appears throughout his Clean bandmate’s album, playing delicate piano, guitar and percussion accompaniments. Robert has also drafted in his engineer Nigel Bunn for extra weird tape effects and Greg Cairns massages the drums & hammond organ.

Grab a hot toddy, sit back and watch the fire burn down. It’s going to be a mesmerising night in the Creeping Unknown…