Today I’m thinking about presenting some songs live that I wrote for the band, as a solo act, and my process when I wrote these. I think not being an expert pianist has led me to make these tiny loops or grooves that I piece together. The relatively simple building blocks (some are, some aren’t) and their geometry guide me through the song, I don’t think in a true ‘band musician’ way about harmony, so this geometry can be irregular, and the shapes are different sizes, the chords wholly unconnected, but we can piece it together. I have a long long romance with Victorian tile. I think about the processes that make these, widely used in the closes of Scottish tenement housing, so ornate and beautiful. There is so much variation, depth and character, and true craftsmanship that stands the test of time. Some of the colour combinations are sensational. I feel it is the perfect example of something very ornately crafted but the overall outcome is a functional thing. People find them who look for them, and closer attention bears the reward.

Today’s thought is about those people and machines who talk the most loudly about what is fashionable and what is cool, and how this all adds up to a blur of noise that needlessly cramps our ability to do the work. The longer I’m around, the more I recognise that these notions don’t matter, and things come and go in surprising ways. However, they do have a sneaky habit of entering our subconscious and acting as a perfectly reasonable voice, even becoming your own voice, that prevents us from taking the true path of artistic discovery, going at a project boldly and without fear. Or maybe that’s just me, fear is a weird motivator. Today I’m leaning into the ugliest, un-coolest, most unfashionable sounds I possibly can to see what gems I can find.