This is the first time I've met either. I kept expecting Pete Murphy's hair and tie (had he been wearing one) to suddenly fly backwards as in the Maxell ad. Mick Karn has a surprising and, shall we say common voice, rather like the clichéd brogue of a south London blagger, at least when he's not using long words. He still has the pretty visage of a thousand and one Japan photos although the searching lights of today's picture taker discover a facial mole. Mick: "Moles are cancers, y'know."

The Dali's Car project was evolved over the last year. Previously unacquainted, a Japanese journalist had suggested a collaboration on finding Karn needing lyrics for his music and Murphy vice versa.

Had you been aware of each other's work?

Pete: "I was aware of Japan's stuff and I really liked Mick's solo album."

Mick: "I wasn't really aware of Bauhaus that much but I was aware of Pete's vocals. That's what I would home in on if I happened to hear a Bauhaus track on the radio."

Pete: "I am basically a singer not a musician, that was my role in Bauhaus. I needed this sort of input. There were lots of opportunities to go into making commercially orientated music with session musicians but I preferred to wait and see what I was interested in. Mick's album really interested me a lot. When Mick rang up we just instinctively went for it.

"I couldn't really see my lyrics working in a commercial sense anyway. I couldn't sing the lyrics to an uptempo backing track. It didn't suit my mood either at the time. Mick's music seemed to relate more to what I was feeling about myself and my experiences after Bauhaus.

Mick: "That's something I hadn't thought before. Maybe the reason it did work out well was that we were both getting over the shock of losing the last bands we'd been in. My solo album was released before Japan split so there were plans for tours and all types of things made for me which eventually I had to say no to. It wasn't what I wanted to do."

The pair have the air of sweeping up the treadmill routines of the rock biz, throwing them in a dustbin and bolting down the lid.

Mick: "I was looking for something a lot simpler. Trying to get the music down to the bare essentials by a process of elimination. Keep it down to a bare minimum which I think we've done really well lyrically and musically."

Peter: "I saw that as a challenge to see if I could tie a vocal line in with a very minimal music which would, in theory, be something very fresh. It isn't like verse chorus verse chorus directed music. It's more instrumental, the backing tracks would stand up alone if Mick wished them to do so. It taught me a lot about what I can and can't do."

Oddly, perhaps, they initially worked in isolation from one another with four-track tapes which were sent back and forth.

Mick: "We're both quite private about the work we do when it comes to being inspired or trying to find something from inside of yourself. It's not the type of thing you can do in a room full of people or in a studio.

Pete: "It's a very introverted project in every aspect."

Mick: "The whole character of the tracks is that there hasn't been a lot of effects or tricks used on the voice or the instruments so things don't exactly sit in or compliment each other. It gives a sense of friction musically and that's why the vocals worked because they carried on that sense of friction. Not sitting in perfectly like the instruments didn't. The closest we came to working it out together was in the studio when certain pieces came up that wouldn't go with the voice or vice versa.

"All the musicians around these days, their heroes are old people like the Beatles. But when you think of the Beatles they were limited to four tracks and that's why they produced what they did. Now there are so many options you can take you tend to be in the studio too long trying all the ideas out. If you limit yourself, I think that's the best way to accomplish something."

With finance from both Virgin and Beggars Banquet to the tune of £40,000, the LP has already gone £20,000 over budget. Half the next advance. Still, having two record companies does carry certain advantages.

Mick: "It's almost a case of them trying, if not to outdo each other, showing that they can keep it up. Neither will say 'I'm not going to put that much in' which leaves us in quite a good position."

Pete has called the LP "obscure but listenable."

Mick: "I wouldn't say it's very obvious. I think everyone is quite excited because nobody knows exactly what is going to happen with it. When we were deciding what the single was going to be we left it totally up to the record company."

Pete: "There's no obvious single there to release for the charts at all."

How do you think fans of your previous ensembles will react?

Mick: "I think the Japan fans will go for it strongly. If Japan had stayed together this would probably have been the next logical step after an album like 'Tin Drum' which was quite complicated. I know we would have gone to the other end and done something quite basic."

Pete: "I think Bauhaus fans will be quite surprised and possibly let down because of their expectation... their identification with me as being quite an extreme hedonistic performer. This is the absolute opposite of the Bauhaus approach because of the introverted atmosphere. It's understated not overstated like Bauhaus was. You can never really tell what the audience will think. Especially if you've got no idea how they received you in the first place."

And those who cared little for Japan or Bauhaus will likely have their hearing tainted by your pasts.

Mick: "If it's down to what they read rather than what they bear. If they get the chance to actually hear something it doesn't really matter."

Pete: "That's an obvious result of what we've done before and it's understandable. I absolutely shut myself off from the whole music business after Bauhaus. I just looked at myself rather than outside stimulus which has its drawbacks, you become so isolated you start messing around with lots of psychotic ideas."

Mick: "It isn't very good for your brain but it is good for actual work. It's the same for me. I have to find out and write around my limitations as opposed to trying to outdo something which may be current, which I might not even be capable of."

Pete: "If I've got my tentacles out... I'm very impressionate of what's going on around me, in other words I can be easily influenced subconsciously by what's around. There is that element of trying to maintain what's going on just to stand up and be acceptable. I decided that I didn't want any subconscious influences other than what was going on inside my head.

"That was a basic rule or starting point for the project. I wanted to shut-off and be a hermit for a very long time and see what came out lyrically. It worked out with lyrics which are very new and very refreshing as a purging of the Bauhaus ideas and direction."

Er, could you elucidate on the contents of your head?

Pete: "The only outlet I'm willing to give it is in my lyrics because everything else is so personal it isn't... I'm not prepared to bare my soul in an interview for instance. The way in to what I'm experiencing is through my lyrics."

Are they explicit?

Pete: "Yeah. Some are very abstract lyrics which are just impressions, lines giving images rather than the literal descriptions of what is going on as that carries more subjective emotion, objective observation." (Murphy dashes to the toilet.)

Mick: "That's true. None of the lyrics are actual statements. They're basically, with the use of imagery, conveying a feeling. I've always written first and foremost for myself. As far as I'm concerned there's no other way. If you write for the masses you're never going to be happy with what you do. You have to write for yourself first. Pete's lines are conveying the same feeling he has possibly picked up from the instrumental tracks, not making statements anymore than the music is. I'm pleased because the whole LP has this overall feeling which we haven't lost."

So how much do his lyrics mean to you?

Mick: "For me they actually make the tracks. Pete thinks that some of the tracks would stand up instrumentally as they are. I should get very irritated and bored with if they were just instrumentals. For me there has to be something laying on top, a separate melody to take my mind away from that. So I might see the lyrics in a completely different way from how Pete may have meant them. But I don't think that really matters. It's down to the individual."

What have you gained from Dali's Car?

Mick: "I've learnt a lot. That's what it's all about anyway, learning. You learn how you react to certain things, you learn what to do next time. I think I've learnt more from this album than I ever have before."

Pete: "I just learnt what I'm really capable of as far as the music business goes and in what is expected of a person like me being a vocalist. Lyrically, I've learnt a lot about myself through research. It's been a self-purging and self-seeking exercise which seems to relate on a wider scale. I'm just learning about myself and how to deal with the world as it stands in relation to myself."

Beyond this LP?

Pete: "We'll just take it by instinct."

Mick: "I'm quite happy just recording for the rest of my life, to tell you the truth. There's talk of tours but we'll see."

Pete: "I miss performing. The actual experience of expressing... my last performances were very theatrically orientated. This would be a totally different approach. I would have to project from a very still stance, very contemplative."

What compliment would you most like to receive from a person hearing the LP?

Mick: "That we're not like all the rest and that we're the only people around doing something different. The only reaction you ever want is acceptance of what you do. Once that's given that's the reward. There's bound to be a lot of misinterpretation as usual from the press."

Pete: "That's why we've kept a low profile. As you can probably see, we don't really enjoy talking about ourselves. It isn't something I've ever enjoyed. I've always found it a very superficial exercise to try and talk about what you're doing. I'd rather just do it. I'm trying not to talk about it too much and lead people up the wrong alley. But this is a necessary promotional exercise that we're required to do. It must make your job quite difficult..."