POLTERGEIST released their debut album this week on the 92 Happy Customers label.

That in itself may not be earth-shattering news, but Your Mind Is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) is the prog and Kraut Rock work of original Echo & The Bunnymen members Will Sergeant on guitar and Les Pattinson on bass, joined in their instrumental power trio by present Bunnymen drummer Nick Kilroe.

Tomorrow night the Liverpool three play Fibbers in York, a chance to say welcome back to Les Pattinson, long departed from the Bunnymen ranks. “Les went back to building boats, repairing them and building them,” says Will. “He’s just restoring a 1967 Riva Junior, like the launch that you would see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on outside Monte Carlo. Chrome and highly polished wood, like a big American car but a boat instead.

“Les trained for this after school as an apprentice in a boatyard and he became a foreman when he went back to it.”

Pattinson had stopped making music altogether, but Will says no big enticement was necessary to bring him back into the studio. “He lives near me and we’ve always met up, going to the pub on a Thursday. He’s always been a mate – he’ll come and fix my car – and we just started playing music again.”

Will was drawn to Can, Neu and Amon Düüll, the greats of 1970s’ Kraut Rock, and when it came to choosing a name for their 2013 take on this German music, it had to be Poltergeist. “It comes from when I was a kid of 13 or something and I used to pretend we were in a band called Poltergeist when I was hanging around with a mate called Richard Brunskil,” he says.

His inspiration came via Kraftwerk. “I can remember their single Autobahn coming out and it was like this new electronic music and I’ve always liked that electronic side of things ever since. I was a massive fan of Brian Eno too,” he says.

Why wait until now to make your Kraut Rock record at 55, Will? “I dunno! I’m always doing something. It’s not always enough still being the guitarist in the Bunnymen. I’ve done quite a lot of electronic things in the past and I wanted to do it in a band situation, and it seemed logical getting Les in because he’s the best bassist I know, keeping the whole thing together with a really smooth flow,” he says.

“We’re creating a form of rock music with its toes paddling in the progressive ocean foam of the Sixties and Seventies and its head in the bone dry air of the present day. We want to try and get away from the traditional band format of the line across the stage. There are 12 notes in a scale and we intend to use most of them.”