Of all the principals of Ash, you would’ve thought that frontman Tim Wheeler would’ve been the one to start a solo career; he is, after all, the main songwriter and the lead singer. But the news of Charlotte Hatherley’s amicable split with Ash comes hot on the heels of word that her second solo album will see release later this year. For Hatherley, it’ll mean she won’t have to split her recording time between her own material and the next Ash album, also being recorded this year. For Ash, it’ll mean they return to the lineup they started with a decade ago, when they were snotty Irish teenagers with a penchant for Star Wars and Jackie Chan. For the rest of us, it’ll probably mean business as usual, for the most part; Ash fans won’t get to see the lovely Hatherley blast riffs with the boys anymore, and North American fans of Hatherley won’t get to see her at all (our one and only chance having been Ash’s North American tour in mid-2005). But there’ll still be another Ash album and, thankfully, another Chaz album, and that’s really all that matters.

Hatherley comes full circle with this cover of Kim Wilde’s “Kids In America,” the song she namechecks in the song that introduced Hatherley to the world, “Kim Wilde” (yes, it all gets a bit confusing and meta). I think this was recorded during a live session on XFM, but as this basically came out of the internet ether, there’s no way to know for sure.