The Masses continues the long collaboration between New Zealand musicians, Stephen L H Bradley and Nigel N Masters. The pair began working together in the early 1980s, laying down songs on a 4-track and calling themselves, The Kaimai Rangers. Initial song writing and recording sessions took place in Bradley’s boatbuilding shed just out of Tauranga, a scenario that led to Masters naming his Whakamarama recording studio, The Boatshed.

Subsequent incarnations of this duo have been Critical Mass, who recorded the album, A Relative Fact in 1995, and The Masses, who, in 1998, launched the record, Who Are We?  Both recordings were made at The Boatshed and included input by many local collaborators. 

After a long hiatus, during which Bradley focussed on working with his band Redundant Technology and Masters worked extensively with Kokomo, The Masses reformed to remaster previous recordings and, in collaboration with others, make new work. To begin this new era, the band, in May 2020, released a remastered single of 1995’s The Kill and an accompanying video directed by Peter B Francis, whom Bradley has collaborated with extensively. They also released, in June 2021, a new work, the sprawling, cinematic, Finland and an accompanying video, again co-produced with Peter B Francis.

Regular visits by Bradley to New Zealand enabled the pair to work on You’re in Luck, their first new album in almost three decades. As the songwriting evolved for the album, Bradley got together with Peter B Francis and worked on videos for three songs that would eventually be the first three songs on the album and form the video The Tomorrow Today Trilogy.

The first piece of filmmaking, released in August 2022, was a video for Tomorrow Today, which features Bradley’s son, Josh. The themes that arose from the making of this video led to ideas for two further much more ambitious video works: You’re in Luck in which Masters plays an unhinged gameshow host in the gameshow You’re in Luck!!!, and Freedom, both of which were launched at an event Bradley staged in his Katoomba studio in June 2023.

With the album completed, Bradley set about creating a band to perform the album at its launch. For this he engaged Howard James, his friend and bass player from their band Redundant Technology, and drummer, Malcom Green. Rehearsals began in late 2024 at Green’s Leura, NSW studio, with Masters rehearsing remotely in New Zealand. Bradley once more engaged Peter B Francis to do production design for the launch, which is due to take place at Junction 142, Katoomba on Saturday 29 March.

In the lead up to the launch the Masses will be releasing The Tomorrow Today Trilogy on its YouTube channel and remastered versions of the albums A Relative Fact and Who Are We?