THE NEW CITIZEN KANE
Q: Your album explores very deeply, verging on fantasy, evoking love and relationships. Why did you go as deep into issues of escapism, change, and fantasy vs. reality?
So, there are a few different answers to this question but they are all true, let’s get into it…
First off, looking at how the album came about and evolved during recording gives a lot of context. Having stepped away from music after my last EP, Invention, in 2016 to focus on a more “sensible” career path, start saving for the future, all that kind of thing, I convinced myself that I was done with the music industry and didn’t feel the need to make another album after “It’s Not Science… It’s A Feeling”. I started writing less and less, and slowly my creative outlets came to a stop. I was excelling in my career and focused my energy on more materialistic goals.
But this all came to a head in 2023 after a brutal 18 months of constant consultations and mass redundancies in the company I was working, after business slumped post the covid boom. It had triggered severe anxiety, but I hadn’t recognised or acknowledged that it was anxiety, and have always had a sort of “superman, nothing can knock me, don’t show any weakness or vulnerability” facade for better and for worse. I still find it difficult to ask for help or show I’m struggling to be honest but I’m actively working on being more open.
Anyway, I left the company to start consulting but those issues that had formed and been ignored were there bubbling under, I was slowly isolating myself from friends, compulsively throwing myself into work as a distraction until early summer of last year when I had a panic attack in the metro station one day and was forced to take a step back and confront the issue.
Part of the the healing process was understanding the void that stepping away from creative fields had created, and the role that creativity, especially writing in my case, had always been a kind of self-therapy throughout my life, it was the means by which I processed events and traumas in my life that had an emotional impact, so I started going back through old songbooks and recording songs that still resonated with me but had either never recorded or recorded but never released. Revisiting old songs then lead me to start writing new songs focused on the now, and recent past. So the process of making the album was in itself escapism so to speak, in order to change my reality in that moment and kick-start my creativity to reignite and in doing so start to work through everything that led me to that point.
The direction of the album started to take shape when I came across a poem I had written 13 years ago called Morpheus, where I’m reflecting on my childhood. It sparked those memories in me again, of the young, carefree little dreamer that I was, always with my head in the clouds, lost in imagination. The feelings that it evoked in me were initially quite melancholic and nostalgic, and that interpretation of the poem is now “Morpheus Interlude”, but by the time I finished the album, the poem took on a new meaning for me, one where I saw myself in that boy again, flickers of the old me, and so the album closer was born, “Morpheus (Made Of Dreams)”. Dreams and imagination are the foundations of creativity I believe, and creativity was my healing process. To heal I had to go back through many significant moments in my life and so the album became an autobiography so to speak, rather than just being an snapshot of my current self. Naturally I’ve changed a lot over my 40 years, and being songs that reflect certain key moments in my life means they are also transformative.
Lastly, the fantastical elements of the album and particularly certain songs, is driven in large part by the type of language I use, which in itself is a result of my natural curiosity, and over active and a tendency to bore easily. So in love songs especially where it’s very easy to fall into saying things in a way that is contrite or banal, so I try to think of new ways to express old concepts, and having a rather visual writing style to begin with, this leads to painting imagery in my songs that can be extraordinary at times and seem fantastical.
Q: One thread that runs clearly through the album is the tension between what is real and what is ideal. Is love always somehow a precarious balance between both, and does one always dominate the other?
I think one CAN dominate the other, I don’t think it should. We’ve grown up in this modern western society where romantic love is idolised and revered to such an extent that isn’t always healthy. Movies & TV shows, especially in the mainstream, more often that not set unrealistic expectations of what a relationship should look like, the ease with which it should come. Social media has compounded this even further with only the best moments on display. I think a healthy balance of both is needed to navigate relationships, that ideal of something to strive for with the understanding that in order to achieve that ideal you have to put in a lot of work, have the uncomfortable conversations, show your true self from day one rather than the polished, interview ready version of yourself.
Q: Throughout the album, there is this sense of yearning and seeking. Is love a quest of self-discovery, or do you find someone to make you whole?
Absolutely not. If you have a hole inside you, pain that your unwilling to face, no one will ever “make you whole”. A healthy relationship only works when you feel whole within yourself, when both parties do. The power of coming into a relationship because you choose to, because you add value to each others lives, but in the knowledge that if it all ended tomorrow you would be OK because you are and always were enough, is immense! The idea that someone else can make you whole creates an unhealthy codependency that will eventually turn toxic.
However, love & relationships are powerful catalysts in this quest of self discovery we call life. They provide us with moments of growth, they give us the opportunity to overcome past traumas and can act as a mirror allowing us to see and acknowledge and hopefully grow beyond our own limitations if we take the time to honestly evaluate our part in those relationships.
Q: The theme of love as a guide and a trickster is referenced several times. Do you believe that love is something that can inspire and test us simultaneously?
Absolutely, I think it can and it should, in the sense that an honest relationship/love is bound to test us, as 2 individuals it is impossible to think the same way on everything, and to grow it’s important to recognise those differences, be able to communicate around them & respect them. Again, going back to the idea of love as one of life’s great catalysts you may grow together or you may grow apart, but if you don’t face the challenge, whatever that may be, life will keep presenting you with the same situation over & over again until you do.
This is very different though to the great trickster, infatuation, which often comes into our loves looking like love, but is fleeting and can cause much damage if you don’t distinguish the two.
Q: The cyclical imagery of time in your work—either a passing second or an eternal summer—tells us there is a complicated relationship with the passage of time. How do you perceive time in relation to love and its ever-changing nature?
Damn, we are really getting deep & philosophical down here today! Haha.. For me time is useful in narrating as it provides a universal reference point that helps people give weight to the emotion of the story (song).
But time as a concept can be a great deceiver if we allow it to be; by getting too stuck in our past or focusing too hard on the future we end up missing the NOW, which is really the only thing we can be sure about. Now. So yeh, I do ponder on these philosophical debates questions sometimes, and those question sometimes find they way into some songs
Q: A few of the tracks in the album suggest that love is a transformational power, near-magical. Do you think that love can make us into what we are supposed to be, or is love something that only reflects what we are?
I think love reflects what we are, and if we are willing to take an honest look at that reflection, it can be transformative
Q: The record has a sentimental quality, particularly in songs that reminisce over past relationships or idealized love. Do you think our recollections of love shape our contemporary experiences of it?
Yeah, I think so, sometimes for better sometimes for worse. As a species i find we tend to over romanticise past events and relationships, there’s a kind of comfort in nostalgia. I think it’s important to acknowledge the good and bad in something that has past, without instantly forgetting those moments or qualities that made you suffer, or without reliving it over & over again, unable to move past it. Having a healthy balanced view on a particular outcome helps us move forward with a greater potential of a positive outcome next time around. With this album I’ve tried to approach every song and theme honestly and authentically, so very often the songs communicate juxtaposing thoughts or ideals, as is usually the case with our busy chattering monkey brains in life. But getting back to the question at hand, I think every experience in our lives, romantic or not, shapes us a little bit and ends up influencing our future interactions with the world around us.
Q: Love is simultaneously both an escape from the world and a source of deep connection. What do you think it is about love that makes it both so strong as an anchor and as an escape?
I think the above is true, but represent different phases of love, where the escapism that love brings is part of the intoxicating act of falling in love, it’s automatic, it’s exhilarating & beautiful but it’s also dangerous. It’s a transient state of love, the quality that causes you to bond deeply with someone, but it fades, or rather is cyclical, it has peaks & troughs over time and it’s important to understand that in order to evolve the relationship and continue deepening the connection. The deep connection is the part of love that continues to grow and build through good and bad times, it takes work and patience and self awareness and communication.
Q: There is a lot of contrasts that you delve into in your work—light and darkness, real and fantasy, love and loss. Do you think that love can only exist in such contractions, or can it be possible for love to just be something?
Is it possible for anything to be just one thing? Nothing in the universe is just black & white, least of all love. My point of view is that to explore and understand something honestly, you need to be able to acknowledge both the good and the bad in it. I’ve always been a curious person, ever since I was a child, and I found the contrasts in life, in nature fascinating. If yourunwilling to acknowledge your own darkness, your flaws then you’ll never evolve past them, same with only sharing the best of yourself or your life, you avoid giving people the chance to connect with you fully.
Q: Much of your music seems to refer to struggles in relationships, ranging from needing space or problems of control. Do you think all relationships go through this, or do you believe there are best relationships that get along?
If you listen to the album in the tracklisted sequential order, what you will notice is that the songs that deal with the themes of struggle and conflict are mostly concentrated in the first half of the album, before Morpheus (Interlude). The songs after the interlude are for the most part more positive in their themes & exploration of love. This is because, as I mentioned earlier, the album evolved into a sort of autobiography, and the relationships which caused those struggles and life lessons were in my earlier years. Being someone who is quite introspective and self aware, and have always tried to look at relationships after their end with a surgical knife, as an opportunity to grow, I’m happy to say my marriage is a very happy one where we are able to deal with our differences in a much more positive way, and support each other. For that reason the songs that are reflective of my later self are a blend of joyful or exploratory in “warts & all” kind of way as discussed in the last question. The song “Overdrawn” from the album which delves into the topic of needing space & problems of control is actually about my relationship to work, especially in that period where the anxiety surfaced in me. To summarise, struggle and conflict will always pop their head up in relationships, both romantic and not, it’s inevitable, but it’s also what allows us to grow, until eventually you acquire the tools to deal with those struggles in a healthy way.
Q: In several songs, you reference the idea of surrendering to love—whether it’s through vulnerability or a willingness to let go. What do you perceive it means to truly give yourself over to love, and is that something that you have found yourself to be experiencing?
It sure is! For me giving myself over to love means being my authentic self, not trying to be an idealised version of myself that I think the other person will like. Allowing someone to know my insecurities and fears, my judgements, my hopes, my stubbornness, my sadness.. If you don’t take that risk and allow yourself to be vulnerable you’re not giving them the chance to step up to the plate and support you, or to know you fully. You also have to allow yourself the opportunity to know & acknowledge those parts of yourself, to love them and not be ashamed of them.
Q: The notion of love’s power to transform us, especially in *”Alchemy,”* seems to be an expression of hope for transformation on a personal level. Must love necessarily transform us, or can love also only express the person we just so happen to be at the time?
I’ve touched on this in part in some of the previous questions, I think love is a powerful catalyst for change because it tends to impact us to deeply and impact many facets of our lives at the same time. For me that translates as a hope for transformation, because I always want to learn & grow in life. I can only speak for myself in this regard because love is such a personal experience and how we live love is very different, from one person to another. But what I see as a universal truth is, for anyone who wants to find growth and transformation through love, they will. Catalyst.
Q: Do you think love makes us whole, or enables us to be more of what we already are?
I think loving yourself makes you whole, not in a vain or narcissistic way, but in the sense of seeing yourself fully, truthfully, and being kind to the parts of yourself you don’t like. Once you master that, and you can find love without needing that love to validate you, then I believe love becomes something that can be a great enricher of your life experience.
Q: The fact that you express love in both happiness and suffering suggests a complex understanding of relationships. How does love cause us to embrace both the highs and lows, in your view?
Once you understand that highs and lows are unavoidable in life, and you learn to appreciate both, to learn from both, then you start to experience things differently. Understanding relationships’ complexities doesn’t make you immune to them, it doesn’t mean the lows won’t be there, but it does mean you’ll be able to deal with them better. Have those tough conversation, sit with those uncomfortable feelings, you’ll soon realise nothing is as scary as it seemed.
Q: Your record traces an emotional path across different landscapes—idealized at times, conflicted at others. How important is emotional complexity in your work, and how does it mirror real experience of love?
For me, writing authentically in a way people will connect with means diving into the complexity, because the complexity is what makes it relatable, or at least I think it is. Plenty of people out there are willing to write formulaic, template pop songs that scratch surface level emotions and themes, perfectly catchy but void of any real soul or identity, because they are written with the purpose of anyone being able to sing them, and they do it really well. That’s not the kind of music I”m interested in writing or making, so although a lot of my songs can appear to be fun & frivolous pop/electronic music at first listen, when you pay attention to the lyrics, to the order of the songs, the genre hopping, the particular production choices, you start to find that emotional complexity is the red thread that ties it all together.
Q: The concept of a fleeting but intense connection, like in “Morpheus (Made of Dreams),” seems to be central to your work. Do you believe that love is always founded on moments of transience, or is there such a thing as stable, long-lasting love?
Morpheus (Made Of Dreams) is actually about my childhood, it was about reconnecting with that little boy that at one point felt lost in me. For that reason Morpheus Interlude approaches the song in a melancholic, nostalgic tone, because it reflected that moment. By the time I was finishing the album I felt so much closer to that dreamer boy of my childhood again, so Morpheus (Made of Dreams) as the album closer is big & anthemic, it’s the positive outlook for whats to come, reflecting the shift in myself since beginning the album.
The Concept of fleeting & intense connection is front & centre in Adonis & Aphrodite however, and, in general, I’m someone who likes to live life intensely, whether fleeting experiences for the more longterm ones, so I think it makes sense that you would feel its presence throughout. And to answer your question, yes, I believe love is founded on moments of transience, and if nurtured can evolve into something long lasting.
