This is The Mostar Diving Club, a project from the former singer and song writer of Obi, Damian Katkhuda. The Mostar Diving Club is an experimental band of multi instrumentalists making it their goal to take on different styles and genres without resorting to samples and computers for help.

Comprising of Vicky Osterberg, Will Worsley, Michael G Moore and Damian Katkhuda the band have met with great critical acclaim. The online commentator In Your Speakers described their first release Don Your Suit of Lights (2009) as “one of the most melodically perfect and stylistically diverse and altogether best albums” they had ever heard. The songs on their first offering were written by Katkhuda in a woodland farmhouse in the south of France, isolated and tranquil, reflecting the mood of this charming debut album. Produced by Will Worsley, who was responsible for much of Obi’s early output (including the single Somewhere Nicer, which was A-listed on Radio 2 and Virgin and led to several European tours and festival performances). 

The album travels through many musical genres and contains everything from large scale productions Vagabonds and Clowns to just a simple guitar and vocal recorded in the garden There Goes My Mind (Plastic Girls). Recorder orchestras, violins with trumpet attachments, bowed saws, accordions, harmoniums, glockenspiels, banjos, auto harps and ukuleles are just a few of the instruments that Damian and producer Will tackled during the making and recording of this highly eclectic album. The follow up Triumph of Hope (2013) has just been released and is what it says, a triumph! The songs on the new album expand the sonic palette used on “Don Your Suit of Lights” with the haunting Train of Roses opening to the strains of a glass harmonium, the beautiful To The Ocean utilising a harp and Echoes taking a journey through a cello and glockenspiel inspired world. 

A recent Sunday Times review described the album as “achingly lovely” and ended with the words “pure gold”. Many of their tunes have been used in film and television to create a unique and beautiful atmosphere for the productions.