Blending richly textured organic instrumentation, electronic sound design and the distinctive, resonant voice of a singular figure in British alternative pop, Fellow Mortals is the literary-inspired collaboration between Trashcan Sinatras’ Francis Reader and Simon Dine of Noonday Underground. In confirming the release of Stella’s Birth-Day, a 14-track 10” al-book shaped by the poetry of Jonathan Swift for Fri 17 April 2026, they release their third single in the expansive orchestral opening piece, Dancing Days.
The duo found inspiration in the writings of Swift, the Dublin-born poet and author who published Gulliver’s Travels in 1726, specifically referencing a series of deeply personal birthday poems Swift composed for Esther ‘Stella’ Johnson, his close companion and rumoured partner. Moved by their poignant intimacy, emotional directness and profound reflections on love, ageing and the passing of time, they set out to create their own musical response to the fleeting nature of human connection.
Dancing Days is released exactly 300 years to the day since Swift presented the dedicated writings to Stella to commemorate her birthday
The release of the project as a limited edition al-book via Hands Full Recordings, binds Reader and Dine’s opulent, ambitious and fittingly emotive songs within in a book of Swift’s original poetry as the hardback edition acts as a cover for the 10” vinyl pressing. A work of experimental, atmospheric avant-pop, the pair propose a complete listening experience that is deeply sympathetic to the mood and tone of Swift’s original text.
The cinematic elegance of Dancing Days sets the tone for the project on those terms as it closes in on its conclusion, following previous single releases A Better State and Some Lasting Pleasure. Lushly arranged, emotionally poised and threaded with both classical sensitivity and modern electronic texture, the track typifies the sense of creativity, care and attention to detail cultivated by Fellow Mortals as they reimagine 18th-century sentiment through a distinctly contemporary sonic lens.
Reader says: “Our hope with this record is to bring a new perspective to Swift’s birthday poems for Stella, and their modernist, anti-pretentious approach to friendship, love and the sublime. We wanted to represent that approach in musical terms, while trying also to reflect the range of Swift's emotional tone - from the playfulness of the earlier poems to the sober seriousness of the later ones. Hopefully, we'll surprise some ears while doing so.”
Drawing inspiration from the uncompromising artistic heft of Talk Talk, ambient pioneers Ultramarine and specifically Pale Green Ghosts-era John Grant, Stella’s Birth-Day was made across the distance and time zones separating Reader and Dine’s respective studios in Pasadena, California and Manchester, UK. The duo’s first musical encounter came when Dine signed The Trashcan Sinatras to Go! Discs as a nascent, 17-year-old A&R scout in 1988, initially seeing them through the release of their debut, underground classic album, Cake.
