NINE STONES CLOSE

Nine Stones Close was originally set up as s solo project by Adrian Jones in 2008, resulting in a debut album, entitled ‘St.Lo’. The band is named after the remains of a mysterious ancient stone circle situated in the Peak District of Northern England, where Adrian Jones grew up.

After a chance encounter with Riversea keyboardist Brendan Eyre at a Marillion convention in the Netherlands the solo project developed into a band, with Eyre’s Riversea bandmate Marc Atkinson adding his distinct vocals to the two subsequent albums ‘Traces’ (2010) and ‘One Eye on the Sunrise’ albums. After the release of the last album both Eyre and Atkinson left the band, mainly because after the move by Jones the Netherlands the logistics of co-ordinating a band with members spread across England and the Netherlands just proved untenable.

In 2016 Nine Stones Close returned with their fourth album ‘Leaves’. Jones reformed the band with Adrian ‘Aio’ O’Shaughnessy on vocals plus Dutchmen Christian Bruin (Sky Architect), Pieter van Hoorn (Knight Area) and Peter Groen plus several guest musicians. That album had a harder edge and a rather different style (some earlier fans finding it a little difficult to move with the band), but it demonstrated Adrian Jones’ continued commitment to excellence and progression in his music. “Progression has collateral damage, Prog doesn’t”.

After ‘Leaves’ a long period of silence started; work, personal issues and Covid interfered with the creation of new music. Although Adrian released during that period two Jet Black Sea albums, a project started with Michel Simons in 2013. Covid opened the door for the 10th anniversary remastered releases of both ‘Traces’(2020) and ‘One Eye on the Sunrise’ (2023, a little belated due to the Covid restrictions).

Although from the outside everything remained silent a surge of creativity instigated a period of creativity and productivity after Adrian and Brendan reconnected. This resulted in not one but two albums to be released in 2024. ‘Diurnal’ was released in Spring 2024, followed by ‘Adventures in Anhedonia’ in the Fall. The line-up of the band consists, next to Adrian himself of course, of both Bredan Eyre and Adrian ‘Aio’ O’Shaughnessy and Christiaan Bruin, Lars Spijkervet and Joachim van Praagh as the Dutch delegation.

Diurnal reflects on the arc of a day, and some of the internal dilemmas we all deal with from time to time. The album takes you from the uplifting dawn of a new day full of hope and beauty, through the high and lows of events and thoughts as the day’s events unfold, and finally to the moments of reflection as the sun sets at the end of the day.

Adventures In Anhedonia is a very personal album, lyrically, and reflects on the mental state and wellbeing of us all, based on the personal experiences and traumas of Adrian Jones’ recent past. Adrian says, “it really reflects what’s been happening to me over the past years, the effect it’s had on me and how I have tried to deal with some of it.”

2025 saw the release of a side project of Adrian and Brendan, dubbed Deforestation. ’50 Days Of Rain’ is an instrumental album, best described as ambient music but it clearly breathes the 9SC atmosphere.

Nearly 20 years of the release of the debut ‘St. Lo’ Adrian wanted to remaster the album, just as he did with Traces and One Eye… However, when revisiting the original album it became clear it did no longer represent his perception of the events from 20 years ago. Plus he wanted to improve some aspect of the original. Together with JBS partner Michel Simons and the current line-up of the band the whole album was recreated and extended to 72 minutes of music. A brand new album based on the concepts and ideas of the original.

St. Lo – reimagined will be release as a double CD with the new album on disc 1 and on disc 2 both a remixed as a remastered version of the original album.

What the future holds, we will have to see…..