In my work I often allude to a poetic idea or image, drawn from experiences and memories that create strong atmospheres. Earlier, I found that there was a beautiful friction between a constructivist approach and the more poetic and fluid way of working; These two opposing elements, the hard and soft, creating a friction which I found to be beautiful. An example of this, is the piece Mother and Child, which I wrote in the spring of 2010. This piece was a departure from the music I had written previously, and in it I attempted to strip away all of the musical artifice and ‘showmanship’ that characterised my earlier music, to be honest.
Since then, I have been continuing to explore personal thoughts and feelings, in words and music, circling the theme of family, particularly the mother/child relationship. Between 2013-17, I composed a series of pieces in two collections, ‘Matres’ and ‘Fatherland’, where the central idea is that of archetypal parental figures. I recorded this music in 2017-18, with an ensemble and choir I formed, and released it as a double vinyl LP titled ‘Separation’.
A blackbird trapped in an apartment block stairway; A falling stone; A decaying bowel of fruit; A walled garden; An empty house falling into ruin; Nightfall...
My work is full of images from 'nature', and of places. I work with the boundaries between rawness and beauty; Freedom and restraint; The delicate moment between the sweetness of decay and death. Music is drug-like for me, it is without boundaries, liquid, filling space, and conjuring up atmospheres and feelings. Like the mythical siren-song, music in this sense is dangerous; With an appeal to unconscious surrender, but simultaneously letting you know that something is not quite right.
