Once again, there is a palpable feeling that maybe the England team might, in the 2026 men’s football World Cup, make it to… let’s not say any more. One consequence of this is that I’ve been hearing Three Lions around the place a decent amount and, once again, I’m reminded what a brilliant, moving but … [Read more…]

I think we can safely call it spring now, here in the UK. It’s the end of the first week of consistently decent weather in southwest England and the delicate sounds of afternoon birdsong fill the air. Birdsong is a beautiful sound, redolent of hope and renewal, but it is now tinged with some ambivalence. … [Read more…]

In an hour and a half’s time, Sun and Moon, Sea and Land will magically appear on all music stores for you to listen to at your leisure. It’s an album of pieces that I’ve practised, tweaked, performed and recorded many, many times, but it still feels fresh and new to me, which I think … [Read more…]

“Hey everyone. I’ve decided the toxicity of this hellsite has gotten too much since Musk got his mitts on it. I’ll be joining ‘Threads’ and shortly resuming all of the usual compulsive behaviours that I had with Twitter which I am now, for some reason, falsely remembering in its pre-Musk era as a chaotic but … [Read more…]

Ever had the urge to just… flee? To get out of the immediate situation you’re in and deal with the social repercussions at some future date? It was a small but not insignificant part of university life as a composer to bring in compositions to ‘workshops’, to be played by touring musical ensembles. While these … [Read more…]

How much digital music and film have I bought? I think I ‘own’ virtual boxsets of a couple of TV shows and have a tentative digital music collection too. But I am undisciplined about where I store it or what account it is linked to, and so on. And some of the services I purchased … [Read more…]

I really enjoyed watching some of the coverage of Glastonbury 2024 on TV this year. As I’m sure is the case for many, watching it has become a bit of an annual fixture for me and my partner. I’ve only been to the festival once (2014), when I was there as a session pianist for … [Read more…]

Q: What’s the one thing that’s even less profitable than streaming music? [drum roll] A: Sitting and checking your music’s streaming statistics. Spotify for Artists is just one of many tools that tells you loads of quite specific statistical information about your listeners, such as what cities they are concentrated in, how many tracks each … [Read more…]

Where were you when you first saw Apple’s 2024 advert for the iPad Pro: ‘the thinnest product they’ve ever created’? That’s what people will ask each other in 50 years. Maybe that’s what their descendants will ask each other in 500. A cataclysmic world event. A mission statement for the future. A giant hydraulic press … [Read more…]

I’ve been interested to read the press around Taylor Swift’s new album. These big cultural events tell us much about where society’s collective head is at regarding the music industry, consumerism, the artist vs the art, and culture in general. I haven’t listened to much of Swift’s later work but I found the single ‘Anti-Hero’ … [Read more…]

In one chapter of ‘Remembered For A While’, an anthology of essays and reflections on the life, music and inner world of the musician Nick Drake, there are lyrics and even a prospective tracklist for what would have been his fourth studio album. Of course, his life was tragically cut short, and that album was … [Read more…]