Though Mike Polizze of Purling Hiss is the best-known member of Birds Of Maya, the Philly act are very much a collaborative project, building up albums out of the instinctive interplay that comes from 14 years of jams. Their latest, Valdez, was laid down in 2014. “We record nearly everything ourselves and every once in a while we put those recordings together into an album,” explains the band – Polizze, drummer Ben Leaphart and bassist Jason Killinger – who speak with one voice in interviews. “We drove to Black Dirt Studio in upstate New York. Jason Meagher, who owns the studio, asked us to run through a few songs. We ended up playing the album start to finish and he recorded it all without us realising it.