Collaboration:

1. The action of working with someone to produce something.

2. Traitorous cooperation with an enemy.

Mex’s first prime collaborator was Cliff Silver, bassist from the esteemed post-punk band Sad Lovers & Giants. Along with numerous officially unreleased cuts, Silver added his advanced musical proficiency to Mex’s second release Intense Living, furthering the palette for what is often known as ‘the difficult follow-up album’.

Probably next in line is ex-Soft Machine legend Robert Wyatt, who Mex undertook some recordings with during the early eighties.

In Michael King’s book ‘Wrong Movements: A Robert Wyatt History’ (SAF Publishing 1994), he writes ‘Wyatt was roped into a project with Mex at his home studio, contributing various instruments for the recordings, but Mex soon disbands and the record is never realised.’

Although there’s some truth within this statement, the description of happenings is not entirely accurate and some material from these sessions has informally flitted out over the years. However, a retrospective Mex release is being planned for future circulation containing the Wyatt collaboration, so ‘watch this space’ as the saying goes!

During Mex’s recording hiatus as an artist from the mid-eighties until resurfacing again in the twenty-first century, it could be argued he was merely just collaborating constantly, only almost incognito in the studio with a different production hat on instead. During this period numerous artists were worked alongside with, from the world-famous, right through to the completely obscure unknown.

A host of musicians contributed to the 2014 comeback release Dr Jekyll & Mrs Hyde, including Porcupine Tree’s Colin Edwin and ex-Dr Feelgood, Gordon Russell. Another cohort from that album was poetess Bernadette Cremin, resulting in an additional post-release, Guilty Fist.

As Brian Eno once said, “Every collaboration helps you grow.”