I have a great big pile of songs that's been growing since 2012 and I'm going into the studio in September to record the drums/bass tracks for these with John Parker (double bass) and Rastko Rasic (drums) at Three Circles Barn near Saffron Walden in Essex. I need your help to pay for musicians and studio time. After that, I'll be tinkering away on the recordings in my shed, building up layers of guitars, pianos, tambourines, melody horns, mandolins, wine glasses, dulcimers, voices, hums and other noises. That part of the process is free. It's just me and my time.
As time has passed I've noticed a theme running through the songs, about the ways in which we pivot daily in our various roles: mother, daughter, father, son, lover, friend, confidante, student, teacher, neighbour, friend. I have been wanting to make these recordings for a long time but I've felt uneasy about making an "Album" in the conventional sense, for reasons of family, of life, and of health.... I've experienced in myself a resistance to the idea of making a Great Big Statement, and a longing to return to the form of the song, that little perfect crack in the fabric that lets the light in, when it's right.
What's really exciting for me are the strength of the co-writes that exist in this pot of songs: work with novelist Laura Barnett and playwright Mark Davies Markham, and musicians Danny Wilson (Grand Drive, Danny & The Champions of the World), David Ford, and Tom McRae, among others.
So I don't want to make an album in the normal sense this time around; I want to build it up slowly, at my own pace, just releasing the songs one by one to you, dropping them like breadcrumbs, when they are ready. I want to give each song the time and space to resonate, to occupy its own space for a bit. I want the album to build itself slowly in your head. And then, at the end of the process, in about 2 years' time, I hope to collate together the favourites (yours and mine) into what you might call an album. A vinyl album. We can talk about that part later. This is the first part.
Risks and challenges
I have booked two weekends in September to rehearse and then to record the basic drums/bass tracks with Rastko and John. I will then have a hard drive with lots of Pro Tools tracks on it, which I will bring back to my shed and slowly tinker with on long winter evenings to start delivering tracks to you. I will be backing up all data files in the cloud to minimise the risk of unplanned data loss. I plan to deliver to you 15-20 songs over the course of 24 months. All the songs may turn out like shit; I guess that's always that chance. But there are some beautiful songs in this pot, and I have been working with John and Rastko for years now and know their work, and more importantly love the unexpected flashes of which they are capable and want to allow room for these. This is a deliberately slow burning project to avoid stress and strain and allow for creativity; this is a project planned with joy in mind.
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