Once upon a time...

…I drove my parents crazy bashing around on the piano that sat in the corner of the living room. Eventually Mum must’ve said ‘shit, enough already!’ because I found myself having group piano lessons once a week with Miss Roz. I must’ve done something right, because pretty soon I ended up having private lessons with Mr Terry who ran the place. Hi Terry! Then adolescence happened. I seem to have lost those mental files, but afterwards found myself doing music at uni, so I’m guessing that practice must’ve happened in the intervening period. Uni was fun, though I eventually grew rather tired of playing the music of Chopin and Rachmaninov and other dead white guys (though not Debussy - never Debussy!) and after graduating gave playing a rest altogether for a while.  The photo is of me at about age 17 by the by, back when I was all young and full of hope.

About six years or so ago I was living in the UK, working in a bookshop, writing gig reviews and generally being miserable. Then, I wrote a song. It was terrible! But it felt good to do so. So I wrote another one and haven’t looked back since.

I put out an EP, ‘at the end’ in 2014, one bloke describing it as ‘a beautifully crafted series of compositions in which highly sophisticated instrumentation, arrangement and recording values directly address the state of the natural world’ (Paul Cosgrove, Blue Mountains FM). Cheers Paul! My stuff seems to straddle a few different boxes, probably reflecting my varied phases of listening to ‘The Bends’ on repeat as a grumpy 17 year old, delving into the world of Kate Bush as a grumpy 23 year old, discovering Leonard Cohen’s work of the 80s and 90s as a pretty chipper 30 year old and being exposed to my Dad’s extensive collection of 1930s show tunes as a hyperactive 7 year old.

It’s only been with the encouragement and support of my friends and family that I’ve really found the courage to express myself through song, which makes the process of making this record all the more meaningful.  It will bring together 5 members of 3 different musical families for the first time, with my sister Holly on double bass, Graham McLeod on electric guitar and Chris Stone on violin, who together form instrumental trio The String Contingent, and Chris' brother Robin of metal outfit Norse on drums. The result will be a genre-bending extravaganza that will trip the boundaries between chamber pop, metal and the experimental margins of folk. Amazing!

The five of us will be writing the instrumental parts in early November, while Holly, Chris and Graham are not otherwise engaged with TSC shenanigans (keep up with their travels and travails here). Recording will follow over summer, while mixing will be provided by the wonderful Dax Liniere of Puzzle Factory Sound Studios. The album will be finished before a launch tour down the east coast of Australia in April 2016 (with rewards to be delivered then), and Pozible supporters will be able to listen first to the pre-release singles as soon as they are ready.

Meanwhile, I’m presenting half a dozen shows during this period of Pozible fundraising at Melbourne’s Fringe Festival where I’ll be putting the songs through their final paces before recording, so be sure to come along if you can or send a friend along if you can’t.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your support!

Thank you!

Musicians - $1800
Recording - $4000
Mixing - $3750
Mastering - $1200
Art and Design - $1500
Pressing - $2000

So, turns out recording is *expensive*!  If you dabble in basic arithmetic, you’ll note that the figures above add up to somewhat more than my target.   There are a few decisions yet to be made that will affect the precise final total - such as which studio will be used for recording and who will make the album art.  My decisions on these matters will be shared with you as the project progresses via regular updates.  Any funds raised in excess of the target will go towards the remainder, which I’ll otherwise be self-financing, so please feel free to give as generously as you feel you are able!

The process of writing, recording and promoting original music in this day and age is an expensive one.  Although there is no real impediment to self-financing the recording of this album in the longterm, this would demand a more piecemeal approach that would not fit in with the schedules of my musical collaborators.  I will most definitely be recording this album whether I reach my Pozible target or not, however to successfully crowdfund the project will enable me to realise this vision sooner rather than later and with my preferred musical outcome.