Disneyland In Dagenham, the eccentrically beguiling 3rd full-length album from Essex born Scott Lavene is out now through Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

“If you like Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Squeeze—or Father John Misty—you will, I am absolutely certain of it, find much to love in Scott Lavene’s music”. Dangerous Minds

A born storyteller, through his records and his writing, Scott Lavene has long been populating a hallucinogenic world of his own creation with ne’er do wells, ragamuffins and eccentrics. From a man draining the blood of property agents in the aid of local businesses (‘Keeping It Local’) to a talking horse who travels Europe selling hash, gambling and performing covers of Talking Heads, his new album Disneyland In Dagenham is no exception.

It’s a record that tumbles together the autobiographical and the imagined, the heart-breaking and the preposterous; the tale of that itinerant drug-dealing horse, for instance is also a genuinely touching allegory for the way friendships can slip through one’s fingers.

“After recording Milk City Sweethearts in my mum’s garage I knew I wanted to record the next one in a proper studio”, Lavene recalls. “There was talk of Rockfield in Wales, residential, but the big bucks were not available. No bucks were. Then Ben Woods from The Golden Dregs let me know he was looking after Vacant TV, an all analogue studio near Greenwich. It’s run by a guy who was touring with Cate Le Bon, so Ben was sitting in. Cheap as you like so I sold a guitar I never used and booked a week with him”.

Getting to work during the freezing month of December, Lavene adds that, “we recorded in hats and coats, lots of noodle pots and fancy tea bags. Because it was cold we worked fast, and because there was limited gear there we worked fast. I like a lack of choice, makes you get on with it”.