Stories To Thrill And terrify

A ghost train, aliens, Captain Nemo's famous submarine and much more besides inhabit I Am The Manic Whale's Bumper Book Of Mystery Stories. Frontman and founder Michael Whiteman talks to Prog about giving voice to his lifelong love of the uncanny and the inexplicable.

- David West

It all began with a book that, like a faded, wrinkled treasure map discovered in a dusty attic, inspired Michael Whiteman and I Am The Manic Whale to undertake their latest musical adventure. The quartet's fourth and latest album, Bumper Book Of Mystery Stories, grew out of Whiteman's love of tales of the uncanny, inspired by the 1963 The Boys' Life Book Of Mystery Stories.

"I found a copy of that in a spooky, dusty secondhand bookshop when I was a teenager," says Whiteman. "It's probably a bit dated now but I've always loved reading ghost stories and spooky stories. I found the book again a couple of years ago, re-read it and thought this would be a great theme for an album. We already had a couple of songs about some quite wacky things, so I thought: why don't we write a few more songs about mysterious circumstances and put them all together?"

Each of the eight tracks on Bumper Book Of Mystery Stories weaves a tale of the fantastic, all linked together by the Ghost Train, which is the title of the album's opening song.

"The idea is that you're on this ride, the train is taking you around, and each scene is a different mysterious story and song," says Whiteman. "The themes from Ghost Train come back loads of times throughout the album to remind you that you're on this continuous ride. It's not a supercoherent narrative like some concept albums, but every song has an element of the Ghost Train song somewhere."

The track Nautilus is a loving homage to Jules Verne's sci-fi classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.