What dreams may come

One of the reasons I first built a home studio was that I would often wake from dreams with music in my head. Having a computer and a good DAW nearby was a way of (at least) jotting down what I'd heard before inevitably forgetting it.

I tried to train myself to dream more lucidly so that, whenever I could, I would not only be able to listen to more of the music from my dreams but try to log it more consciously.

After a while of doing this I had scribbled down enough ideas to categorise them by type so that I could potentially use them as the groundwork for varios projects.

Many of the pieces that I subsequently built on ended up being used for my ongoing work: TV, theatre, film etc. but there were some that were decidedly more 'song-like' in nature, sometimes even with the starts of some lyrical ideas (albeit seemingly nonsensical as you might imagine).

I found myself strangely unconcerned about whether the songs would actually turn out any 'good' or not! For me it was as much about the process as the product. The fun of bringing something from the dream world and putting it into this one.

However, at this point many of the ideas I had jotted down were just that - ideas. Often no more than a melody line and a few scribbled chords, perhaps a few words.

In the beginning...

The album

Thus, in my darkest hour I called upon the multi-talented instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, actor and, I like to think, friend - Mr. Stu McLoughlin.

Sometimes I would have a relatively clear idea of where I might like them to go and sometimes I would come up against the adversarial writer's block.

I have worked with Stu for many years and knew I could rely on him to help add real colour and quality to the project. Without Stu I dare to say that this project would never even have gotten on its feet, let alone have been a finished one.

I thought it might be fun, in a very whimsical way, to make a sort of concept album from some of these song ideas.

The missing link

Stu added so much to the project and together we were able to finish enough songs to justify calling it an album.

Here's what we came up with...

As to whether we'll do any more: well, to this day I still sometimes jump up out of bed, humming music to myself, and start firing up the studio...for which I'm sure my wife is truly grateful.

During those glorious days of lock-down Stu & I also worked on a project called The Huldufolk: remotely recording songs that we thought would be fun (and often challenging) to cover.

If you have any questions about the writing of the album, get in touch and I'll be happy to fill you in on any of the details that I can remember.