Author:

Making the video for Tell Me Where To Go and filming/animating it all with my great pal Joseph Boyle was one heck of a brilliant journey. It’s subsequent tour of film festivals over the past year was also a totally unexpected rollercoaster. Disappearing into a journey in a world of one’s own to create a video about a fantastical journey, only for it to go off on its own fantastical voyage across the globe has all been rather surreal. We watched it get picked up by 35 different film festivals across the continents, receive nominations and awards, get championed by Neil Gaiman, and the song too was appreciated with radio play and a ‘Best Song’ award from the Cannes World Film Festival. That’s crazy. We met a lot of truly wonderful people, who bounced back a helluva lot of love and appreciation for the work Tell Me Where To Go became. It’s been quite overwhelming to be honest, and it leaves one feeling very humbled and grateful for it all. It was made with a lot of love, and above all a lot of long long hours which myself and Joe spent in a darkened room aboard my boat, creating scenes and moving things in minute increments. Tell Me Where To Go will continue on its own journey I hope and for now it feels like there’s nothing else to do around it. But what I’m left with is the feeling more animation beckons and that it’s the start of a journey rather than the end of one. One of the nicest things to happen through the journey was the BBC World Service produced a documentary piece about the making of it for their programme ‘In The Studio’, which was made by the totally brilliant icon of legends that is Antonia Quirke. Having Antonia on board my home, chatting to myself and Joe, and then hearing the brilliant programme she crafted was a real honour and joy, as was the wonderful feedback received from listeners. If you want to check it out, you can have a listen on the BBC Website here.

My new album ‘Different Flowers’ stepped out into the world on 21st June underneath the Solstice moon. It can be found on Spotify and other streaming platforms, and also on Bandcamp where you can also pre-order the album on vinyl, CD and order the limited edition prints.

And here is the album cover, created in my living room. So I suppose literally the world I’ve been living in with this album. So happy to be finally sharing the whole record and there are so many HUGE thank yous to amazing people. But I’m not going to put them all in one place. Here and now however, I want to thank the brilliant souls that helped bring these songs to life with their wonderfulness, recording skills and musicianship.

In particular, to the truly wonderful Fred Thomas for the amazing energy, skill and artistry he poured into making Different Flowers, as a producer, engineer and musician, and for making it such a joyful process. Thanks to Greg Freeman for his incredible work mixing the songs, for taking in every detail, and creating such a wonderful vibe across the whole record.

Thanks also to Ewan Bleach , Phillip Granell and Miranda Joy for the beautiful sounds they added and being so lovely to work with. And thanks to Norman Nitzsche of Calyx Mastering in Berlin for mastering the album with such care and consideration. Thanks too to Ed Hiller of @shadowwritingband for his additional engineering on some tracks.

There are so many more MASSIVE thank yous – especially to wonderful family and friends for all their support. For now, please go have a hear of it! I hope you like Different Flowers, and I would love to hear back from you once you’ve listened.

My new single We’re Beyond That is out in the world. I wrote it on my birthday a few years back, thinking about getting over grievances of the past, that there are always far worse things happening elsewhere, so it’s about getting perspective, realising time has helped move you forwards, helped you mend, and helped you decide what’s important. Note to self. That eve The Village Butty moored near our mooring on the Regent’s Canal, putting on one of their brilliant nights ‘Jam on the Butty’ – it’s a music barge owned by lovely people with a bar and lots of musicians and revelry – a bunch of us went and I had the pleasure of the musicians indulging me playing my new song and them all jamming along – was a blast – I hope they come back to the neighbourhood soon! The song has a line in it about getting struck by lightning – later back at my friend Ollie’s boat I was looking out of his hatch across the water and a single bolt of lightning came down – just the one, and there wasn’t another all night. True Story! Thankfully it didn’t strike me tho… Image above is my artwork for the track (available as a print soon) and below a scuzzy piece of paper from way back with the lyrics on.

Pleased to share artwork I’ve made for forthcoming single Tell Me Where To Go. The journey of a song is of fascination to me. I’ve definitely not had a song that has ended up being explored visually as much as this one. The stop motion animation that rose out of this song (out on 29.09.23) became a new story and journey, and was certainly an underestimated undertaking. The artwork is a response to the animation. And now all three will go off out into the world! But it all began with some words, a melody and some tinkering on a guitar, what must be over five years ago now. It’s been a journey.

New single Tell Me Where To Go comes out on the 29th September and with it a stop motion music video. This animation project started in June 2021, so it’s been going on in the background for a long time, and I’m so excited to finally share it.

In advance of public release it’s been doing the rounds at film festivals and has so far already picked up a number of selections, nominations, and even a couple of awards. This includes Best Music Video at the London Independent Film Awards, and nominations for Best Music Video at the Cannes World Film Festival and the Los Angeles International Music Video Festival, and it looks set to be screened far and wide, from Croatia to Canada. All of which feels pretty wild. Even more wild, is that in July Tell Me Where To Go was also awarded Best Song at the Cannes World Film Festival. Wildest.

Very proud of the result of both the song and the video. With me on the epic voyage of the animation was co-Director Joseph Boyle. The song features the amazing production skills and musicianship of multi-instrumentalist Fred Thomas and the gorgeous vocals of singer and pianist Miranda Joy.

Tell Me Where To Go – out on 29.09.23