Former Mercury Prize nominees, the now-streamlined Sweet Billy Pilgrim are back with a new concept album that finds them blending their classic art-rock and pop influences with more contemporary arrangements. Multi-instrumentalists Tim Elsenburg and Jana Carpenter share the story behind Somapolis and explain how their fans helped them realise it.

Words: Johnny Sharp Images: Julian Simpson

Autumn is upon us. The clouds are gathering, the breeze is picking up and the air is pregnant with a tangible moisture. And in a central London beer garden one weekday morning, Prog has just sat down with art-rock duo Sweet Billy Pilgrim to discuss Somapolis, their latest release, which is based around vignettes from an imaginary city.

Just as the album has a keen sense of place, the recording of our conversation is intermittently drowned out by police sirens, passing binmen and the squawk of scavenging pigeons. Teaspoons clink on porcelain, cigarette papers rustle and a lighter clicks unreliably as three coffees are placed on the table in front of us, while Tim Elsenburg and Jana Carpenter relax into telling the tale of how, and why, they followed up 2018’s stripped down Wapentak with a much fuller, widescreen sonic creation.

Thankfully our al fresco appointment takes place under cover of a corrugated roof, sheltering us as a shower begins to cascade from the heavens, but adding atmospheric ambience to proceedings – just as Sweet Billy Pilgrim have done, rather more deliberately, to Somapolis.