I’ve been a fan of Trespassers William for almost 25 years now, going back to their 2002 second album Different Stars, a monumental document of country-space-gaze-core. You might think that wouldn’t require much effort considering their last album came out 20 years ago and they’ve been officially disbanded since 2012, but they’ve still sneakily been up to stuff since then outside of Anna-Lynne Williams’ solo work as Lotte Kestner and Matt Browne’s Disinterested project.

There was a one-off reunion to release the song “Winterstorms” in 2020, and a live album from 2004 came out last Spring, but even with these precedents it didn’t occur to me that the band would have active socials outside of Williams’ own, so I missed that a) they have an Instagram, and b) they reissued their third album Having a couple weeks ago on vinyl for its 20th anniversary. Copies are sold out on their Bandcamp but still available via Translation Loss Records; however given the pricing, I am content with my original CD edition, sent to me as a promo copy by Nettwerk a million years ago.

I only became hip to the release thanks to an interview with Williams posted at The Big Takeover, which I’m happy to share and which contains this exciting bit of news about a potential return to action for the band:

For personal and logistical reasons, I wouldn’t see all of us reuniting, but Matt and I definitely are considering playing some shows to support this reissue. I’ve been pretty busy working on my solo music and had started writing a new album, but I’m now considering that becoming a new TW album instead, depending on what Matt and I can make work and if we can find a rhythm together again. I would definitely revisit that.

Anna-Lynne Williams, Trespassers William
An interview update with Anna-Lynne Williams (Trespassers William) @ The Big Takeover

And via their IG, I found this interview with both Williams and Browne at TL Ride-Along about the differences between making their breakout Different Stars and the follow-up Having, including needing to defend the unconventional mix from superstar producer Dave Fridmann:

We put a sticker on the album to explain the sound of the record was intentional, which sounded ridiculous to us at the time but we did have a lot of fans who complained—’You guys need to take responsibility for the sound issues on your album’ or ‘There’s something wrong with mine,’ people trying to return them, which is why it never came out on vinyl before.

Trespassers William
TL Ride-along #3: Trespassers William Look Back on 20 Years of ‘Having’ @ TL Ride-along

And along with this nostalgia fest comes the recollection that a conversation with Browne for the University Of Toronto student newspaper The Varsity was the first interview I ever conducted. That article no longer exists anywhere, and maybe it’s for the best.

But what does exist is the video from a session the band did for KCRW in April 2006 – which I actually mentioned in a blog post over 20 years ago – to promote Having, and in lieu of any promotional videos or other live footage from the era, I’m happy to share this six-song set.