I'm an independent musician based in the North of England and I'm self-releasing a new solo album called IMAGO in December 2013. I'm also hoping to tour it through December 2013 into early 2014.
IMAGO is the first full-length offering from me in five years. My last album "Down With Gravity", went down very well with critics and audiences alike and the two before that (The Singer Kicks - 2005, and The Sweetest of Tales fromt the Bitteret Edge - 2001) also garnered me a warm and significant underground following.
I've set out to make a very open-hearted record that morphs and evolves as it unfolds. The DIY ethic has served me well, allowing me to stay self-sufficient whilst remaining entirely connected to my music, my audience and my community. There's been ups and downs. Like a bungy cord. I suffer from depression and last year my head touches the water and stayed there for a while. It's hard to find motivation when you're exhausted and drowning in the black down, but I've had a lot of help and found myself springing back up, and with it the urge to release anothe record.
All of this - the DIY approach, the amazing musical landscape I've been a part of in bands and ensembles and leading choirs, my battles with mental illness - has fed back into my work in ways I can't even begin to quantify or describe. At the start of the year I swapped prozac for writing a song a day. I did that for a month whilst I weaned off them, and so far so good (although some days are still quite tough).
Of course, being independent also means having to be creative in finding alternative approaches to making and sharing the music that I believe in. When I first started out, Crowdfunding didn't exist, and I think it's a fantastic way of circumventing the established music industry ecosystem by building a real community of music makers and music drinkers. I hope you feel part of what I'm doing here.
I'd love to release IMAGO digitally and also a CD and on vinyl, because loads of people love to download, but then again loads still seem to want actual records, despite what we're told. I also want to tour the album around the UK. I'm hoping to go on a tour of 'real pianos'. These might be in your home, local pub, a cafe you know, an established music venue, a club - anywhere with a real piano where you can imagine an lovely intimate gig taking place (and where the overheads aren't crackers).
I'm asking for help to make this all possible. Any funds raised through this site will go directly towards a) the making of the album IMAGO and b) expenses for the live tour of the album. I hope you enjoy what you hear/watch/read, and thanks for stopping by.
