Last week, I spent a lovely few days with Joe Porter-Bolger in his studio, working on a new album of my electronic music. More details coming soon!

There are some more releases in the works, too – Filey Brigg (ambient soundscape) is looking like it might be released on a really wonderful label, and Sand House (solo piano), one of my final non-electronic works, is going to be recorded in the near future.

I’ve also appeared on a few things as a performer, including an upcoming album of Sarah Heneghan’s music (with Sarah on drums and Charlotte Keeffe on trumpet/flugel).

While not a ‘proper’ studio recording, I’m also very proud of this: https://resonant-bodies.bandcamp.com/album/resonant-bodies-quintet

I’ve got an upcoming project happening in Portugal… I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen, but I’ll be making some new music.

Finally, I’m making a new album, called Nothing But Vaine Selfies. I’ve decided, rather than making lengthy, infrequent posts here on Music Patron, I will instead post more often, detailing my progress with the album.

The title is taken from a graffito in Leeds:

I am fascinated by this. The misspellings are beautiful. CONCRET JUNGLE hints, perhaps, at an entirely new style synthesising Jungle with Musique concrète. There are many ways to spell vain/vane/vein, none of which are VAINE (which appears to take something from each of the three spellings). Also, despite invoking the phrase ‘concrete jungle’, Leeds really doesn’t have that much concrete, and the graffito is written on brick.

I walked around Leeds with, initially, a disposable camera and then a cheap Kodak M38 and found so many wonderful, beautiful, incomprehensible graffiti. Declaring love, predicting the future, immortalising friendships, anger, frustration, joy. I like thinking about what makes people scrawl these sentences in public places. Is it vanity? Is it that different from a musician who makes something and then decides they need to share it with the world?

I’ve written music about graffiti before. My 8-movement, 40-minute piece Local Mosaics and Graffiti focused more on colours, shapes, and field recordings. This album will be, perhaps, a little less experimental and more rooted in popular forms/styles.

Over the coming months, I will share album updates! More soon!

Here is a lovely image of Sarah (drums) and Chris (Balcony Recording Company) as we listen back to some drums we recorded for Nothing But Vaine Selfies.