The Honeymoon - 'Summers Gone' (2004)

Wayne Murray and Thorunn Antonia Magnusdottir were pop duo The Honeymoon. London-based Murray found his love of music after attending his first live gig (Daisy Chainsaw at ULU in 1992) and taught himself bass, then guitar, before he started writing his own songs and playing in bands like Catch and Thirteen:13. Magnusdottir, meanwhile was born and raised in Reykjavik, Iceland and grew up with a musician for a father, who often took her with him to work in various recording studios. By the age of 16, she'd fronted a New York hip hop band called The Faculty, and she cut an album ('Those Little Things') for the 1001 Nótt label, who wanted to turn her into a manufactured pop star, but she wasn't having any of it and instead fled to London in search of like-minded creative types. Within a matter of months, Thorunn and Wayne met through mutual friends in a pub. A phone number on a scrap of paper was exchanged and soon thereafter, they started talking music. Once together in the studio they quickly realized they had inadvertently stumbled onto something a bit special and three months later, on the strength of their initial demos, the pair signed to RCA. Originally naming themselves The Lovers, before settling on The Honeymoon, they drew comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, The Carpenters, Mazzy Star and Belle And Sebastian upon release of their 2004 debut EP, 'Passive Aggressive'. Acting as a trailer for their cinematic feature length release, 'Dialogue', all four tracks from the EP made the final cut, including the sublime 'Summers Gone'. Production and mixing on the album comes from Tom Elmhirst (Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia, Sugababes, All Saints) and awayTEAM (AKA Andy Lovegrove and Ian Davenport), who's list of credentials includes work with Badly Drawn Boy, Supergrass and Shirley Bassey. Even the keyboard player Jez Shaw is of reputational acclaim, with credits on albums by Amy Winehouse, Everything But The Girl, Howie B and Saint Etienne. Sadly, The Honeymoon was, err, over when sales didn't match expectations. A single from the album, 'Truth Hurts', was prepared for release in late 2004 but never made it beyond promo stage. Thorunn and Wayne both moved on to other projects; Thorunn joined indie/folktronica band Fields and Wayne became an award winning composer for film and TV. One release of particular note is Thorunn's 2012 Italo-disco influenced solo album, 'Star Crossed'.