Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

Takagi Masakatsu, Akira Kosemura and the beauty

April 28, 2015

I love Takagi Masakatsu’s music. I don’t know much about him but, as far as I can tell, he travelled the world asking people to sing or play one melody, ‘The Light Song’. Hopeful piano riffs mix with childrens’ choirs, found sounds and scratchy processes. If I could sum up what I know of his […]

categories: essays, music, reflections

Sea music: foreword to a poetry pamphlet

April 2, 2015

I’m hoping to send our new poetry pamphlet to the printers this weekend. It’s the second collaboration between myself and poets Joe Franklin and Hugh Greasley. To whet your appetite, here’s a draft of the foreword: Sea music Ted Hughes once said that if the reason we travelled to the coast during our holidays was to relax, […]

categories: essays, poems, reflections

The zenith of stuff

February 24, 2015

There’s a statistic doing the rounds that claims more than 50% of Earth’s species will be extinct within 85 years. E.O. Wilson, the Harvard professor behind this proclamation, has written about interdependence within ecosystems and the increasing pressure human activity is placing on life on Earth. The idea that more than half of our biodiversity – both species […]

categories: essays, reflections

You had to be there

February 3, 2015

We were talking about travelling and a friend said that if he were to embark on another big trip, he wouldn’t pack a laptop, tablet, smartphone or a camera. Not even a notebook. We’d been in total agreement until that moment. What would be the point of travelling if you didn’t take artsy photos with […]

categories: essays, reflections

The importance of being bored… and eating frogs

January 1, 2015

Hunter-gatherers couldn’t have had much to do once the sun had gone down and the storytelling was over. I’m sure we can all think of a few things but, aside from the obvious, our ancestors would have little to occupy themselves with but watching the night and watching their own minds watching the night. We, on the […]

categories: essays, reflections