Sabbatical

When you're writing, it consumes you.  It becomes the world you live in day to day.  In a corner shop buying a twix, you're thinking about that tricky bridge which doesn't seem to bring the chorus in properly - waiting for the microwave to ping, you're wondering if you should add a sweeping pad under the accapella intro.  However, these last few weeks I've been working on (whilst being hit over the head by my co-writer with a pointy twig) the music for 'The Working Man' - a stage show based on the paintings of Alexander Millar.  I've got the intro, first song 'Lewance of beer' and 'Sandhills' done and dusted but it's taken about six weeks so far to get the third song 'Roll up, Roll up' finished.  The script is finished now thank goodness but without the music, it's going to  be hard to convince both the artist and my publisher that it's a potential success - so I've been concentrating on getting that finished. 

Song 4 is 'The Caulkers Song' which features a lot of industrial sounds such as hammers hitting rivets (a common melody heard around the Newcastle Upon Tyne shipyards in the early 1900s) and the fifth song, 'Build a ship' - an eight part choir peice, reminiscent of the kind you'd expect to hear Welsh miners singing - though there was a tradition in the North East at the turn of the 20th century of brass bands - so that's all going to come together in the final overture - a massive orchestral blast and crescendo.

So, that's why the new Urban Fox album is on hold.  Just in case you wondered.

We'll probably pick back up again in May.