Combining textured, organic and electronic soundscapes and the resonant voice of an outsider icon of British alternative pop, Fellow Mortals unfurls as the latest, literary-led project from Trashcan Sinatras’ Francis Reader and Simon Dine of Noonday Underground. Their ongoing, five-decade artistic and personal friendship detours to produce Stella’s Birth-Day, a 14-track 10” al-book (album and book) release inspired by the poems of Jonathan Swift, launched with the lush, synth-rich delicacy of new single, Some Lasting Pleasure – OUT NOW.
Connecting Manchester, UK and Pasadena at the same time as sharing in each other’s enduring artistic restlessness, US-based Reader and UK resident, Dine were inspired by poems written by Swift, the poet and author born in Dublin in 1667 and publishing his world-famous satire, Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. Touched personally and artistically by a run of deeply emotive birthday poems written for Esther ‘Stella’ Johnson, Swift’s friend and rumoured partner, which addressed the inevitable ravages of time on the body and mind, the musicians began writing their own celebration of the love that appears in lives that are all too fleeting.
Worlds away from the duo’s first musical encounters, when Dine signed The Trashcan Sinatras to Go! Discs as a nascent, 17-year-old A&R scout in 1988, seeing them through the release of their debut, underground classic album, Cake, the pair’s deep dive into the Stella’s Birth-Day series of poems, written in 1724 and 1725, result in an album of stately songwriting and progressive, glassy, warm and occasionally warped instrumentation.
Strategically ‘leaked’ track from earlier in the year, A Better State, revealed a voice unblemished by time on the part of Reader and an expansive, expressive use of computerised and hand-wrought sounds on the part of Dine. Looking to the uncompromising artistic heft of Talk Talk, ambient pioneers, Ultramarine and specifically Pale Green Ghosts-era John Grant, the release of Some Lasting Pleasure hits high notes of experimental, atmospheric avant-pop, sympathetic to the mood and tone of the original text.
"This project is a tribute to language, to storytelling, and the quiet, powerful ways human beings have always found to connect with each other,” says Reader. “Swift’s birthday poems to Stella are powerful, funny and touching, and Simon and I have tried to amplify their beauty and create an album that will draw listeners into this fascinating and ambiguous love story.”
Stella’s Birth-Day is set for release on vinyl, CD and digital formats on Fri 12 September 2025 on Hands Full Recordings, yet the project couldn’t be contained in audio form alone. Reflecting both the literary source and the weight of Reader and Dine’s response to poems, considered by literary experts as pinnacles of expressive prose, special editions of the 10" vinyl album will be bound in a book of Swift’s original poetry.
With each track of Stella's Birth-Day corresponding to stanzas from Swift's poems, transporting listeners into the world of 18th-century sentiment through a 21st-century lens, Fellow Mortals have confirmed the track listing for the album as follows:
Side 1
Dancing Days
Venus In Her Prime
Poetic Dress
With These Eyes
This Day
Serious Lines
Oh Stella
Side 2
Some Lasting Pleasure
Reflecting
Stubborn Stoics
Who With Reason
A Better State
So Unkind
I'm Alive
Fully confirmed details of album pre-orders, including the limited-edition first edition album x book pressing will be available in early July, along with more new music from the pair.
Fellow Mortals’ union follows Reader’s appearances as vocalist on past Noonday Underground albums, Surface Noise (2002) and Sing It From The Mountain (2023), in between the numerous deliberations the pair have enjoyed over co-written and produced Trashcan Sinatras songs. As the band and Dine fail to deny rumours of current work on a new, seventh studio album by the band, Paul Livingston. Trashcan Sinatras lead guitarist, has joined the pair to add deft, melodic touches to a number of Fellow Mortals songs.
