AN INTERNET band has produced its first album - even though its members have never met!

The 16 members of cyber band Virtual Strangers have managed to create musical harmony on two CDs, despite living in 13 different places and across four different countries.

Guy Pople, of Briarcroft, Darwen, founded the group in 2003 after writing a song track on his seven string guitar.

The music teacher was contacted by an American bassist Eric Sands about an internet article Guy had written and the pair decided to collaborate on a track.

Guy sent his song to Eric as an MP3 file and Eric created his own accompaniment before returning it.

Guy, 36, said: "Even though we hadn't met our musical ideas matched perfectly, and I thought it was something that could work with a much larger number of musicians. I typed in musical percussionist with home studios' to Google and came back with a list of possible drummers."

The band steadily grew to include a celloist, pianist, saxophonist and has now even extended to a sitar player and two vocalists.

"It was important that all the musicians were already in paid work because we were doing this for fun, and couldn't expect any dividends straight away," said Guy.

"The MP3 file with the guitar would get sent out and then one person would add to it and then another. If something caught a musician's ear then they could get involved, but not all the instruments feature on all the tracks."

The debut CD Prelusion took 18 months to create and is now available to download on the internet at sites such as iTunes. It is touted as a unique and fearless blend of styles and genres, representative of the variety of experience, personalities and cultures within the band.' A second CD, Inquiring Minds, is being fine tuned at MJM Studio in Oswaldtwistle.

"Working on the second album has been much quicker because we are all used to the process," said Guy.

"At first I thought it might prove difficult if none of the artists could ever get together but the world has been made a much smaller place by the internet. Our saxophonist lives in quite a rural area of France, out in the sticks, but the modern technology means he can collaborate with us.

"It has been a very liberating process. One of the biggest causes of friction in a band is clashing personalities - everything but the music itself. When you don't actually go into a studio together you tend to avoid those problems."

Visit the website below for more information.