Ok, 2024, whoa! 3 months have flown by and doesn’t the world feel like it is in a weird and even more f-ed up place? Things feel quite grim, grimy and it’s such a grind for a lot of folks to simply pay the bills. My beloved Birmingham is both broke and very dutty – we are so bruk that I heard we are reducing bin collections and litter dumping is rife 🙁 Climate change is definitely upon and yet us humans still make nominal changes to our carbon related behaviour; more people in cars… seems like less folks are walking andddd it’s been the wettest 18 months in the U.K!

Then we have the West’s continued ignoring of war in Sudan and the Congo, genocide in Gaza and more war in the Ukraine.  It’s all devastating especially for the innocent folk that get caught up in this nonsense….

So…. it feels weird to share the following amidst the current times we are surviving but here goes it, I’m finally writing music for my first EP. It’s taken years to get to this stage which started with reducing the amount of workshop leading I was doing. I had to minimise the time spent on creative projects helping others express their (amazing) creativity as I needed to take time out for me; time to direct energy into figuring out my compositional practice.

In 2015, the PhD I applied to study (examining black orchestral practices) wasn’t successful in its pursuit of funding and, part of me occasionally wonders what would have happened if I had had those 3-4 years to focus solely on my practice instead of doing a PhD that I was ‘encouraged’/funded to do. In my spare time, without even properly realising it, I’m doing the initial PhD I initially wanted to explore in the school of Wake Me Up Before I Go, Go (to Work). The Music of the Unseen tour was the first step, exploring the arranging and compositional skills of African-American Charles Stepney – a musical genius whose life was cut far too short just as he was ready to share his own music with the world, rather than solely supporting other musicians’ artistry behind the scenes. I recently learned Stepney taught Muhal Richard Abraham; co-founder of The Experimental Band and the AACM, orchestration techniques. He also introduced him to the Schilinger System of Musical Composition – where mathematical concepts support the generation of musical material, it’s not an easy read but it’s time for me to give it another go.

So there we have it; the EP is in motion.

Ceasefire now!