Luckily, Sigrid’s particular flavour combinations only have to be endured once a week. Karen, Sigrid, and Leo are each responsible for cooking dinner one day a week, the other four nights they wing it: takeaway from Dunker, something from the freezer, or just tea and sandwiches.

Karen glances furtively at Sigrid, who is busy tasting her concoction with the help of a wooden spoon. Her frown and the slight hint of surprise on her face could be interpreted as either an indication of success or a need to quickly defrost something.

Karen turns her attention back to her laptop and the long list of numbered JPEG files, pushes her cat Rufus, who has settled down on the keyboard, aside and scratches him with one hand to keep him still while she clicks through the files with the other.

*

Kore had hesitated for a long moment. Then he had not only released Billy Formby from any responsibility, but also tasked him with transferring all the pictures from his phone to a USB drive and giving that to Karen.

‘But no damn uploading or emailing,’ Kore had said. ‘I don’t have to tell y—’

‘No, you don’t,’ she’d cut him off. ‘I obviously won’t share these pictures with anyone unless it’s absolutely necessary. You’re just going to have to trust me.’

Exactly why the secret recording sessions were documented using a basic mobile phone camera is still unclear to Karen. She listened half-heartedly while Kore explained that they were thinking of using the pictures to make a collage for the inside of the sleeve for the vinyl release and something about ‘unpolished, authentic presence’.

Be that as it may, the result of Billy’s documentation of the past four weeks’ studio work is now lined up in front of her on the screen. She clicks the mouse and the list of 206 nondescript file names turn into rows of thumbnails. At first glance, most seem to have been taken in the recording studio or during post-session hangouts in Teglet. A few photos look like they’re from the villa down on Frisel, and at the bottom, there are thirty or so from the wrap party.

With equal parts curiosity and trepidation, she opens the first picture.

The descriptor ‘unpolished’ certainly applies, she muses fifteen minutes later. Granted, some pictures are both well-composed and sharp, but she suspects that has more to do with luck than Billy Formby’s photography skills. The ‘authentic presence’, on the other hand, is palpable. The pictures show the fierce concentration, frustration, and joy in the body language and facial expressions of the studio musicians, producers, and sound technicians. And Luna herself. Often in focus, other times like an ever-present shadow, she’s in virtually every picture. Always in white from head to toe, tall and beautiful, she looks like a column of light among the mixing tables, microphones, half-empty coffee cups, ashtrays and beer cans.