Slow Down

For as long as I can remember writing music has become a way of reflection. An exploration into how and why I think or feel a certain way. Some songs spill out as if they were already there and I just happened to walk straight into them. Then there are songs that call out to the universe from within. Songs that in that moment must be written and then thrown out into the world from the tangles of the human condition. 'Slow Down' is one of those songs. A pained response to losing a close friend, whose addictions had driven our friendship apart.

"These days don't ask for too much more than you can give

Better you change your ways than the light by which we live"

There is no doubt that, for many of us living alongside technology, the pace of our daily lives appears to be speeding up. With Moores Law echoing in the background we can easily feel that we're grasping for a future that very few of us actually choose to aim for. 'Slow Down' may be a call for awareness in the most simple terms, but deeper within that presence lies a quiet encouragement to find our flow; our connection to all things.

"There's a road to where you're going, there's a smile upon the hill

There's a force at which you're flowing

That determines you're very own will

Keep your feet where you tread

And don't lose you're head

‘Cos you'll get tired of running round"

As 'Slow Down' began to form I realised that the consequences of losing my friendship had quickly become an analogy for how I felt about our world at that time.

"I can see there could be danger

This could be the final step

You see what we don't squeeze from nature

The cards will lay to rest

But the dealers wise

He hides his eyes

In a cold game of glory"

The final verse then goes on to tackle our selfish tendencies. How blinkered and misguided we become when we only think of ourselves. Ultimately 'Slow Down' is a heartfelt request to an addicted world. Perhaps only in slowing down can we really see our place in the flow of this incredible life and nurture the deep connections we are all so capable of finding.

The Way Of The River

Many years ago I sat down with a friend to write a song around the symbolism of a river. He had posed the idea to me after several years studying Buddhist principles. We'd often meet to drink coffee, dive through his extensive Frank Zappa vinyl and talk about his studies. This particular afternoon had been spent ruminating around one simple aspect of his 'no-self' study that he had summed up to me in one sentence.

"A river is always a river, but it is never the same." 

As seemingly simple as this statement sounds, it sparked a deep analogy that rooted down into the perception of our own identity and the world around us. I've never forgotten the door that opened that afternoon. My perspective had shifted, and it's memory has stayed with me over the years. The symbolism of a river is a powerful one, and it has echoed throughout my lyrics ever since.  It had firmly planted the seed of my fascination with the notion of impermanence.

'Riverway' was mostly written from and about memories and memories are very strange things. They bend and stretch back into our past, echoing moments charged with the vitality of life. Yet, like a river, memories much like ourselves are constantly moving, forming and re-forming. I've come to imagine that the task of expressing memories of feelings or experiences is to re-invent them once again. To strike a new mark, with a flash of paint, a movement in dance or an expression of song...

"I'm on my way back to find out

Just what could have changed if I'd said it out loud

And maybe there's something in the quiet times

And it's spinning us round

And it's keeping our eyes wide open

And it's making this sound

Right back into the Riverway"

In many ways 'Riverway' follows my last release 'Get Your Fire' like a familiar echo. Despite marking a nostalgic look back to 'Get Your Fire's' contrasting reach forward, 'Riverway' is essentially about presence and connection; an autobiographical, feel good, folky, upbeat song that wanders back to a time of simply being; a time of freedom when sun soaked open roads and lush deep forests mixed with a stirring sense of infinite possibilities.

Appearing towards the end of the album 'Fell For The World', it pauses in a joyful look back before the last two songs take us far away. A look back into a memory of vibrancy, vitality and adventure. I wrote 'Riverway' to describe how, through my own experiences  on the road, we can all fall deeply into ourselves and the world around us in the same gesture. How our observations and experiences  in one aspect of our lives can be absorbed and become lessons and inspiration  through another lens. Ultimately, it acknowledges that a grounding reverence of this life is right here in front of us, waiting for us to let go and listen.

"I found myself adrift among the waves

No stars to pull me in

Cut loose

But I'd been saved"

The Bridge To The Fire

Long before I had felt the warm sand under my feet I called to the fire, before the deep forest sleep and the soothing turquoise waters I had , quite unwittingly, set a prophetic intention and found myself at a bridge.

I could never have known that I would pause for so long in that place. After all, discovering the first inklings of a song is a magical and mysterious moment to find yourself in. A tiny moment glistens out of the silence, beckoning you to listen further and discover something. The opening lines of 'Get Your Fire' and its groove had appeared so quickly, as if it had always been there. As if I had just happened to walk straight into it, and there it was...

"Go get your fire and find your way back home

Cos the width of a river is the length of a bridge I'm told

Go find your mind and take what you find to be free

Cos the weight of our worries is finding the time to see"

At the end of recording an album I always seem to have one song left over. A song that didn't quite get finished in time. A song that carries a light to the next album and sparks the next group of songs, a kind of bridge. 

'Get your Fire' is that bridge song between 'Hold On To The Rhythm' and 'Fell For The World' although I began to write it before either of these albums existed. Looking back, It reminds me to be patient and listen, but in the first moments of being it cast a powerful portant. A moment of pure intention that called out to me to fulfil its opening lines in order to discover the rest of the song. 

Writing songs can be a quick process for some and there have been rare occasions when songs appear almost fully written; but for me, writing music is often a dive into the deep unknown. My intentions are usually set firmly to explore, to find something 'other than', something else. 

'Get your Fire' called out with such a strong voice that it struck me silent, I was captivated by it and I had no idea what to write next. Years later I realised that it was the course of my own life that was to feed the direction of the song. The opening line called out "Go get your fire and find your way back home". It was an instruction to myself. This song was not to be written by pondering on my own in a tumbled down old farm house in the middle of Wales. It was to be discovered by moving, changing and growing. Loving and celebrating life. 

The cover picture was taken on a beach somewhere in North Queensland Australia in 2002, months into the first of many adventures that would come to inform the rest of the song. Having started as a call to myself 'Get Your Fire' grew under the stars. It soaked up the sunshine and friendships, the fiery sunsets and deep forest bird echoes, the cool waters and lazy hammocks, the heat, the dance and the love. Until finally, one morning, eight years later on a small island in Indonesia, I finished the last few words. It had become a song about being brave, setting intention, following your intuition and sharing your bliss with the world. A feel good celebration of what it is to feel good.

It's no coincidence that it is this point in time that I finally release this song into the world. Twenty two years after writing those opening lines I find myself standing at a bridge once more. I have promised myself to listen, for I have no doubt that there are great adventures ahead...

We Are Home

Home had appeared one day beyond the mangrove, far away from the cold hills and valleys of Derbyshire where I first learned to grow my roots of place. Struck by the soul of a kind new friend and forged by distant hearts, on that day home had become a place not to leave but to carry.
Spanning oceans and continents, home had become a song about displacement and reconnection. About bravery and resilience despite the feeling of loss.

Mangrove trees are amazing. They bind together an intricate community that provide habitat for a huge diversity of animal and plant species. Roots fuse on an epic scale and stand strong against the wild oceans hurricanes and tsunamis. When the seas calm they slow water down and filter the vital sediment establishing a new place for life. If our ways as humans can be reflected through the patterns and cycles of our observations of nature then perhaps there are even more intricate lessons to be learnt about ourselves as we analogise our way deeper into the forest. On that particular day, far from the familiar, the mangrove had helped me connect once again and write.
It reminds me that often all that is needed of me as a writer to is simply show up and listen.

There must be thousands of songs entitled 'Home'. In an era where most of the planet have been told to stay put, our definition of what home really is has been challenged. Traditionally defined by our personal spaces, home is where we rest, eat and sleep and hopefully feel safe. Yet what many have experienced through our recent times has been a yearning to be outside among our families, friends and strangers. Within the presence of nature and all its intricacies and influences. Perspective is a precious gift often only afforded to us in hindsight. Our experiences over the last few months have provided us an opportunity to learn something more about what home really is to us all. Perhaps it is not the immediate space we curl up to hide from the world but the world its self and further still, our very existence that defines home. When astronomer Carl Sagen insisted that NASA turn voyager 1 around to take a photograph of Earth as it left our solar system in 1990, his motivations were far from scientific. The photo of Earth known as The Pale Blue Dot became a rare perspective of our home and the vast space around us. Home is belonging, it's right here around us and within us.

I've been a DIY musician for over 20 years and home has always been the place I write, record, rehearse and explore music. Everything I've ever released has been recorded in this small space on my own. However, inspiration is by no means bound by the four walls of my spare room. Just as water finds it's way back to the ocean so too, songs, rhythms and melodies find their way back to us all. If home is a place then it is here. If it is comfort and safety then we need only prompt our own actions to make those aspects a reality. After all, we are a small planet spinning at one thousand miles an hour, travelling at sixty seven thousand miles an hour around a yellow dwarf star travelling at four hundred and ninety thousand miles per hour on the edges of a majestic spiral galaxy one hundred and fifty million light years away from the pull of The Great Attractor. We may not know why we are but we do know where we are. We are home.

The Well You Seek

I climbed these gritstone boulders and traced these Parmelia saxatilis lichens for years growing up in the Peak District in Derbyshire. Familiarity grows deep roots when you spend that much time in a place. The lichens plotted maps to unknown worlds, marked where to climb, where to slide and where to pause and wonder. Patterns formed like faces peering out from the sage greens, yellows and blues to greet my imagination. Since all of the rocks had once been unearthed from the disused quarry near by, I'd ask myself if anyone else had ever traced their form in this way or was I the first? Of course the lichens had been the first. Tiny lives in symbiosis. Two organisms working together. A fungi and an alga  collaborating to make what we observe to be one form. Collaboration, not competition, is what made these rocks colour with life.
 
It is very often the act of looking into the past that reveals our interconnection with things. I've since come to suspect that this connection moves in all ways and in all directions if we choose to look closely enough. Or perhaps that should be far enough? Though we may be familiar with solitude we are no less alone than everything that exists. Connection is something I rediscover over and over again and it's a theme that runs throughout 'Fell For The World'.

Years ago I wrote and recorded a track called Putovinya whilst studying to be a sound engineer. Putovinya means journey in Slovenian. It was an ode to Vladamir, my fellow engineer on the project who had left his family in his war torn country to study sound and follow his love of music. I'd decided, in order to challenge us, that the track was to be a musical voyage through the various styles of music I had absorbed over my time so far as a musician. I dragged in every instrument I could lay my hands on to create the track. The collaboration showed me something that I've rarely found since.

I've always written and recorded music alone. It's not particularly intentional, it just works out that way for me. On the rare occasion I'm joined by a fellow writer or performer I relish every second. In the back of my mind I always knew that I wanted to invite my good friend to guest on one song in particular. 'Wishing Well' would not exist if not for Marcelo Andrade. A fellow multi instrumentalist and songwriter Marcelo is a Brazilian meastro. It had been my honour to sing backing vocals on his track 'Coco Pera' from his incredible album 'African tree '. During this recording we had experimented with a couple of other songs and out of these sessions I'd stumbled upon the chords for Wishing Well. I always imagined that Marcelo would be on the track some how and his traditional Brazialin Rebecca ( a relative of the violin ) seemed like the perfect match. 

In my late teens I discovered drone music through playing the didgeridoo. In recent years throat singing has become a regular practice ( often sat in the car waiting for traffic ). This interest along with my on going fascination with Indian classical music, singing bowls and gongs led me to a wonderful musician and healer called Celia Beeson based in Bristol. After being entranced by her Sounding Silence sound sessions we quickly found common ground and one day, out of the blue, she very kindly gifted a traditional Indian Tambora to me. The instrument had a sentimental connection to her and it was her wish to pass it along to be played once more. I was honoured, and took great pleasure in recording this Tambora along with my Sitar in the droning depths of the throat singing on 'Wishing Well'.

Collaboration has shaped 'Wishing Well' much like lichen on a rock. However it won't be me who explores it's nuances this time. It's yours to discover now, to play, absorb and create your own worlds in. My only wish is that whoever does stumble upon it, that it nurtures hope. A gentle encouraging reassurance that we are all wonderful beings capable of deep kindness.

Behind the blue

Watch lyric version of 'Still Here'

Cover photo : Sunrise over Nusa Lembongan taken from the east coast of Bali in 2008.

It had been eight years since I'd stepped foot on the island of Nusa Lembanogan off the east coast of Bali in Indonesia. A whole life had seemingly passed before me in that time as I ventured out into the dim early morning light. Six months previous to this trip I had endured the trials of spinal surgery after being bedridden for many months before that. This was my first long haul flight since my operation and I still felt vulnerable and cautious to push my body. Medication had taken away my coordination to sing and play an instrument during those months and I had recently reconnected with my dear old friend songwriting. To return to a place is to acknowledge what has been as much as it is to reconnect. Change is inevitable. I write and think about change a lot nowadays. It's a theme that features heavily on my new album Fell For The World. With an increasing fascination I've grown to be ever more comfortable and familiar with impermanence.

I love words. Music and lyrics have always coexisted for me as a songwriter. Words usually introduce themselves as phonetic sounds to begin with. A verbal dance with the music that’s unfolding. Following a stream of conscience like this is where I'm happy as a writer. Perhaps it is for this reason that I've always loved obscure lyrics. It is this obscurity that often draws me deeper in. Suddenly out of the swirling depths comes clarity: a word; a line or couplet that cuts through and stands crystal clear. 

The scrambling mystery that follows a twist of words as you absorb, process and interpret a new combination of elements reminds me that we often crave these fresh experiences. There is a fluidity between writer and listener. A space where interpretation and projection coexist. A place where all who care to immerse themselves are welcome. An open place of no wrong conclusions. I love that obscurity. It is for this very reason that I've always hesitated to explain my intentions behind lyrics and meanings of songs. Believing that the journey of a song and of sound itself is only completed, and to some extent only really exists, when it reaches the listener and they invite it in. Much like a rainbow only exists when the angle of light hits the eye of the observer ( see previous blog post ). 

Sometimes a song arrives with such clarity and ease that it's immediacy can throw you. It can cause you to doubt yourself for a moment. Once you've established that it isn't a song that has already been written after all, and that it's familiarity is not because you’ve heard it before, but rather that a pattern has emerged from this swirling intricate life that resonates in that particular moment. You suddenly find yourself in the right place, connected, awake and in the flow.

I sat down to write later that morning. My wandering had revealed changes on the island that now sat awkwardly in me. Plastic pollution had started to gather at various points on the islands beaches and in the forests where eight years ago there had been none. My heart ached and my conscience cried out in silent guilt over the changes that our modern world had brought to this paradise. Many other similar experiences had gathered in me while traveling over the years. Deep within the forest a yellow Oriole’s call echoed as I stumbled upon the opening melody. I vowed to myself that this song would only exist to give back in some way. A reminder that, although change is the most fundamental nature of existence, we can learn, respond and interact with that change with compassion, wisdom and love. 

All proceeds from the sale and streaming of Still Here will be donated to The Ocean Clean Up indefinitely.

As most folks tend not to buy or download music anymore there are two other ways you can contribute. If you listen to music through a streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music then please follow this link to your preferred streaming site and add the track to a playlist or share it around on social media. As small a gesture as this sounds, It still all goes to helping raise money to clean our oceans and rivers.

If you are inspired to give more than £3 for a download then please follow this link directly to The Ocean Clean Up’s website donation page and make your donation.

If music plays and there is no one there to hear it ...

It's Sunday, I love Sundays... This morning I woke up thinking about writing music and the engagement of listening.

I can never really claim to own the music I write as much as anyone can claim to own the words they speak. Writing music feels like an ongoing commentary based on a response to the same vista that we all look upon through our own senses. The patterns I arrange feel right in the moment and are more usually the result of impulse rather than construction. Consequently, those patterns then go on to mean something to someone else which is a reminder that music enables a distinct form of communication. I have come to learn that honest communication with myself is the key to unlocking a connection with others. The main challenge is to get out of your own way and to not tear it all down when you yourself have moved on from that moment.

I know now that I need to write for myself, to poke at myself and find out what I really think or feel. Words can so often be used without thought and care. Sometimes I wonder if writing is a key to diving deeper;  a safe place to discover yourself and find out how you see the world in that moment, with the added karmic notion that it will continue making connections far beyond the time you spent with it.

You may have heard musicians describe the relationship between the listener and themselves as a conversation. It is probably at its most tangible during a live performance. A shared space where the crowd can literally give back to the performer.
I like to imagine that a similar dynamic is woven within the essence of the act of listening itself. I have often wondered if the listener in some way completes the song. Just as an observer grants a painting a place to receive its form. To question whether we as observers and interpreters of the world actually change that world in our act of observation is a question posed by many fields of study and has conjured numerous quotes and riddles over time. See: Subjective Idealism, Thirty-seven Bodhisattva Practices, Hui-neng and Drishti-srishti-vada.

Song writing is a search for ways of expression. It is assembling the rhythms, melodies and lyrics that feel right in that moment for reasons and impulses known only to the writer. Once the song leaves the writer's hands it begins a transformation. From that point on it belongs to anyone who cares to catch it and embrace it.

You are the listener and what happens next is up to you. As listeners and lovers of music we define its destination; by engaging and connecting, you complete the song's journey.

Writing music is my therapist, my friend, my enemy and my mountain to climb; but it is only as a listener that we lead a song home.

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Still holding on to the rhythm

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it had been a while.....

In all the excitement of recording my new album ( announcements to follow soon I promise ) some part of me quietly acknowledged that it has been 10 years since I recorded Hold on to the rhythm....

....TEN YEARS!

I am forever grateful to everyone who has stumbled upon this album. I am still really proud of these tunes and at the same time deeply humbled by how these songs have been embraced over the years. They have carried me far and wide to beautiful places and enabled me to meet beautiful people. I can't express how grateful I am to everyone who has danced and sung along at shows and let these tunes into their worlds. You are the momentum and life that fuels these songs to endure the years and stay present and alive. 

Thank you!

Front Cover of Hold on to the rhythm - An amazing piece of Spalted Maple courtesy of Paul Hinds over at Hobbit House Inc

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