​'From Our Own Correspondent' is a BBC Radio 4 programme where foreign reporters send back news and stories from around the world. I guess the idea of this programme merged with a thought that if someone has passed on, they might as well be based on the other side of the world and out of contact, like a reporter or a correspondent sending back reports as memories. And all the spaces they've been in once they've gone hold a special energy, without getting too 'hippy woowoo'. Like school fields or hills they've walked in. A lot of the album seems to be about that sort of idea in hindsight.

Musically, this song goes back to some point early in 2017 (!) when I recorded the basic guitar and drums with James Yates, whose fantastic drumming is all over the album. We recorded it live together in a house in the New Forest. UK, and for years I thought it was terrible and I'd played the part terribly. But it was fine! I was an idiot. It sounded great in fact, especially the drums. So years later I did a tiny bit of editing and added some more parts and, bang. It was done.

The video is a continuation of the idea from the video for 'Spiral Island' which has various scenes with myself walking through them. These were mainly gathered on a recent tour and trip I did to Germany and the Swiss Alps. It's been a fun idea to keep filming these scenes. They don't feel like much individually but I hope that as they build up and appear in context against each other they sort of mean more than the sum of their parts. 

It occupies most of my thoughts. I get loops of half unwritten songs or guitar parts looped in my head. But I stopped really doing any music in practice about 6 months ago. Its been a theoretical exercise for the last half a year because I've taken my foot off the pedal and not engaged with the tug. Oh, and I've moved house from Germany back to the UK. So I'm now on the edge of jumping back in. Music. Ready to do it again. Is it what I do? Can I still do it? Will I still feel the need? Am I really a music person? I seem to listen to more podcasts than albums these days anyway. It's been the longest period of time ever when I not relentlessly picked up a guitar and found something to play. I'm awake now and ready to go.

​I am now living inside the body of someone who decided to become a musician. Or not even a 'musician'. Someone who can't not do it. Not yet. Not until the obsession with something or other drains away like an old bit of piss in evaporating on a concrete hill on a sunny winters day. The background of skills are there so I am allowed to use them. They're available and its good that there are some basic skills lying around under the hands and a natural inclination of how to string a melody together which seems to make sense. Also, I notice that I can play a few fingerpicking patterns on a guitar which are a pleasure to use. Although something feels like it's missing. Or do I just think it's missing? I think it's the overfamiliarity of it all. But also things are now clearer. Distinction of good or bad.

​I soon will open up Logic to see what state my in-progress-for-a-few-years album is in. I hope it wont sting too much. Hopefully my fresh set of ears will fool me into thinking its been made by somebody else, which could be useful to know. Will it be shite or how I remember it, which was a sort of haze of self hype and bending things into place. Including expectation. And that's where it lies. It doesn't have to be good. It'll just be what it is and thats okay I guess. But I'd prefer it if it was good. Either way, I'm not going to stop until its done and then a few people can hear it and I'll move onto the next one. Just accept now that it's a thing that can and will be done whilst you're in this persons head and body. Sweltering into the endless long road of desire.

All this summer reminds me of summer. It's summer 2008 and I'm in Leeds, getting ready to move over to Berlin in a few months. Having spent three years "studying" pop music at "music school" I thought the best way to get to grips with it would be to learn a few of my favourite Beach Boys songs. So I did. Here's me getting to grips with singing and songing, but I think they turned out pretty nice.

I did some music for this great three part web series 'Warten Auf...'. Nice chats with german authors. Episode 3 here below, and the others are out there too.

Link to the publishers site: https://www.hundertvierzehn.de/artikel/%C2%BBwarten-auf-%E2%80%A6%C2%AB_2497.html

Over the past few months I have been trying to get back into playing live. I guess its strange that it isn't such a part of my routine of my project as I feel it should be. The classic way of getting out there and spreading the word. "Look it's me and I'm doing music!". 

As a person standing on stage with a guitar and singing songs it's easy to be mistaken as a musician. A singer-songwriter musician. Something I'm not too keen on getting mixed up in. But then again I do write songs and then go and sing them. How is one supposed to expect anything more from this simple format. I had an acoustic guitar and then I added a delay pedal to the chain to jazz things up a bit (not literally). Still not enough. So I went electric, feeling smug with my guitar and amp, and also a few more pedals. Maybe I still wasnt getting the message across, so I bought another amp. Two amps in stereo! Now this will surely do the job and make everything ok. However I still required more, so a loop pedal was brought in to assist me in playing some drum loops I'd made. Damn, now this is a rig! All this shitting equipment. It certainly sounds great, but it's a huge pain in the elbows to transport to a gig - going by public transport very nearly killed me the other day. But I still end up being a person standing there and singing some songs he wrote. Maybe I should just go back to simpler times with an acoustic guitar and a pedal or two. Maybe I need a drummer or a full 16-piece band. Maybe all this equipment I have is there to make up for something I lack as a performer. Or maybe it legitimatelly works to try and set me apart and get my own sound going. Maybe I've just simply not played enough yet to find the magic juice. 

​I'm proud of the album I made 'Go Dream'. I worked my ass of trying to mix the bastard and find the right arrangements. I also shot myself in the foot trying to realise any of it live… it's simply not possible as one man. With a few gimmicks, delay pedals, and drum loops something of the mood can be summoned and can occasionally entertain a few people. I think I have to explore the area of compromise. Take enjoyment from the stripped back nature of my limits. Perhaps it will lead to more natural directions. I'm working on it...