Two months until August. Fragile World is very nearly finished and I will be sending the full demo to Mighty Force very soon.
I want to write something forward-looking for this post rather than looking back, because the feeling of this particular moment is one of genuine anticipation rather than completion. The album is nearly done but it is not done yet, and there is something right about the fact that this post exists in that almost-there space rather than after the fact.
The final studio sessions are happening. The mixing is close to complete. The tracklist is locked and the emotional arc of the record is exactly what I wanted it to be when I named the album and started working on it in 2024. The two years it has taken to get here were necessary years. The album is better for the time it took.
In the studio, beyond the finishing of Fragile World, there are early ideas beginning to develop. I’ve learned not to push these too early or to give them more definition than they want to have at this stage. The next thing will become clear after this thing is finished and not before.
The DJing continues. The Lil’ Giant festival appearance and other gigs that happen through the summer will run alongside the album release period, which feels fitting: the live performance side of what I do, the thing that started everything in those Bournemouth clubs in the early 1990s, happening simultaneously with the most significant studio statement I’ve made.
The broadcasting side of things is evolving. Stream 101 was one of the most meaningful things I did during the Covid era, running the shows simultaneously on Mixlr and Mixcloud Live, and regularly hitting the top ten in the global Mixcloud charts at the time. I’m glad it existed when it did. The Mighty Force show on Rogue State ran its course too. But the love of broadcasting, which goes back to the OSR days in the early 2000s and has taken different forms ever since, hasn’t gone anywhere. From July I’ll be returning to monthly live shows on Mixcloud Live, picking up where Stream 101 left off in a new context. Same platform, same commitment, same impulse: play music to people who want to hear it, in real time, with all the spontaneity that live broadcasting demands. Watch this space.
Thirty-five years and counting. The love of it remains unchanged.
August is coming.
