How now, Mad Spirit?

The upcoming release (out everywhere on the 16th of May and available right now on BandCamp) Mad Spirit is my third 4-track EP written, recorded and produced in a bedroom because Covid closed all the theatres and my creativity cannot be contained.

None of this would have happened without the zoom group known as Bards Club - a bunch of mainly LARPers who also enjoy a good song, story or poem and many write their own original material or filk (cover/parody) familiar works. And this EP in particular has 2 songs directly inspired by members of that group.

Level One Bard is a lullaby written for the group organiser, who is currently expecting her first child. I went through several complete rewrites before finally settling on the final version you'll hear on the album, but it's been well recieved in the group and I hope any creative types with children of their own will find something to relate to in this track.

Masterpieces was written for one of the youngest regular participants in the group, a talented musician and artist struggling, as many teenagers do, with fitting in. This was probably just as much a letter to myself at that age, and to anyone who is driven by, and at the mercy of, their own creativity.

Invocation is directly inspired by everything I miss about my theatre work. Up until a year ago I was acting, directing, writing and devising with a focus on queer narratives, and a life long love of Shakespeare. See also: fickle muses in the middle of the night who like to wake you up at three in the morning with ideas. Or keep you up long past then giving nothing at all.

Blue Haired Boy... what can I say. There's a very small niche that is the gay, trans, aromantic, hair dyed, wine soaked pagan blues jam but it's a catchy earworm with some mild swearing and some pretty up front suggestive themes. It's fun to play too!

So that's what to expect, I do hope you'll check it out and in the meantime you can find my previous two EPs Friends in a Box and Wanderlust wherever you like to get your music fix.