A Musical Journey Into The Past

The start of any new project marks the start of a new life. And the start of the album 'Lost and Found' was, recorded between 2015 and 2018 in the United Kingdom, was certainly a purging experience. It's a semi- biographical collection of songs which spans my early years as a child right up to the present day.

The recording was something of a journey not just into myself and my past, but also involved lots of trips from the south of Spain where I was resident to the North west of the UK, to a studio that I felt would understand what I wanted to achieve. And I am happy to say that we achieved it, and a lot more besides.

In a recording studio everything comes under the microscope, the songs, the performance, the recording and the interaction of those huddled close together in the control room.

It is not an easy place to bare your soul, especially if your soul is a bit battered and bruised and you have to deliver in front of people who may not empathise.

Artists are sensitive souls at the best of times, by nature, but we have to toughen up in the close quarters of a control room. At the same time we have to maintain a high degree of sensibility. There are bound to be differences of opinion and personality clashes, it goes with the territory. However, it was in the main a very cathartic experience and the end result was most pleasing for the ear to hear.

The album is an eclectic mix of styles and therefore very difficult to pigeon hole. More than a few have mentioned a similarity to Leonard Cohen, which is a bit strange as apart from 'Halleluja' I haven't really got into Leonard Cohenthat much at all, but I will gladly accept the compliment.

Above all what I wanted to do was pay a kind of musical homage to the Beatles who inspired me to become a songwriter musician in the first place when I was a nine year old child. To that end we used audio double tracking, an arpeggio loop running backwards (making my semi acoustic guitar part sound something like a harmonium ) on the song 'Falling', multi layered harmonies and a whole variety of other studio tricks across the whole album.

I was happy to play pretty much all of the instruments myself, with a little help from my friends, and to be my own producer. I did all my own arrangements, which were brought to fruition by the man at the desk whose studio it is.

I was particularly pleased with the efforts of studio engineer and co producer, Guy Forrester at Linden Recording Studios in Cumbria UK, who was more dedicated than any artist could expect. And I was pleased with Mr Lance Quinn, (Bon Jovi producer, to name but one great act he has worked with). Lance did some very nice guitar work on a track called 'Photograph of a beautiful mind, ' a song dedicated to Stephen Hawkins and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I was also pleased with the contribution of Rachel Swan on vocals and her father Keith on percussion. The rest as they say is all my own work.

One final credit I feel duty bound to give is to Peter Radford my Executive Producer who stepped in at the last minute when it seemed the album could not be finished due to a lack of funds. Thanks to Peter the project was completed and the resulting album was released soon after on all streaming platforms.

The album was recorded during a very reflective period in my personal life and so I suppose what I really needed to do was off-load a lot of stored up emotions and baggage in a very positive and creative way in order to move forward with both my career and my life. As a very good Spanish friend mine Maria said, I needed to empty my bucket.

And so, with a clearing of the internalised emotional and psychological decks, with a brand new canvas to paint on, I move forward to the next stage in my journey, where ever that may take me.