A few weeks ago I found out we’d been successful in an application to Arts Council England for funding for a project exploring places in Norfolk through sound, music and archive film.
It means I’ll get to collaborate again with B R O A D S, otherwise known as James Ferguson and Mark Jennings. It has also set me a pretty scary new challenge, to respond to places and footage without using words…….
My whole musical identity is about words, I’ve never felt like a particularly accomplished musician (not downplaying here, I genuinely only know a few self-taught chord patterns and random sections of piano parts, I cobble things together and muck around on my guitar until I find something I like) and a part of this is because instruments in my songs are a vehicle for stories. And I’ve only ever been able to tell those stories through lyrics.
Approaching this project with a view to telling a story through sound is both terrifying and incredibly exciting. It opens up new possibilities. What if I use voice as instrumentation without words? What if I pick up an instrument I’ve never played before and figure out what noises I can make with it? What if it all sounds totally rubbish and Mark and James remove all trace of me from the album?
Currently we’re working on ideas using field recordings mixed with musical soundscapes and spoken words (not mine) that will become a body of work to both record and to tour in a series of Norfolk venues in 2020. Looking forward to sharing the progress.
In the meantime you can listen (and buy) the excellent new B R O A D S album here.