"We wrote this is London, Leeds, Oslo, Holguin and St. Anne/

It was recorded by a good friend on the Kentish Coastline.

It was mastered in Nashville, Tennessee."

For any artist, the second album can be a challenge. After their debut in 2011, The Zoo Community Jazz Band refocussed their efforts in preparation for their next project by taking on a deliberate concept, a new recording approach and a new working environment.

Said the band: "Our aim was to develop a collection of stories for this record and present them in a personal format. We started by looking at the lives of our friends and families and into our collective ancestry before looking further afield and visiting other parts of the world to learn about the music, legends and people outside of our own sphere of understanding."

The result is an album that has all the character and heart of ZCJB and has allowed them to grow with their sound and channel the diverse influences of their travels. 

"Its a very natural record with fewer electronic elements in lieu of more live performance. With that and our traveling in mind, Nashville seemed like the perfect place to go for mastering and to allow us to again re-define our sound."

This record is also a new step for the band in terms of their approach to its delivery.

"Our criteria for the method of distribution is that we want our audience to have quick, easy and affordable access to the music and we want to have as little environmental impact as possible. We are fortunate that we can take advantage of digital technologies and, with our label, go paperless in distribution, PR and marketing of this record." 

The combination of The Zoo Community's masterful songwriting ability and the unique sound offered by this album provide the listener with something more than an entertaining and striking record. 'Stories' leads the audience down a path and takes them on a journey that crosses the globe and delves back over one hundred years of the band's ancestry and human history.