Inner Space

Welcome to my inner space. This is where I offer the work I'm currently doing, in a loosely curated form. The artworks are derived from my scribbled journals that I write by hand to work through my various existential questions. Music then follows, going places that words can only point to. The music is improvised in response, not as a search for philosophical answers but more for transcendence, solace and catharis. Sometimes I edit the music, other times I leave the improvisations as they are and record them in their raw state.

I'll add, remove, rearrange, or swap the music, artwork and ideas around so that the current theme is unfolded more clearly or vividly. So it's a work-in-progress project—it functions differently from the chronological, categorised stream of a blog. When I decide that it's finished (not that anything is really truly finished, it just stops), I will release the music as an album on music platforms, and start a new project with a new theme.

Butterfly

My first project is one that I've been thinking about for ages. Based on the idea of a butterfly as a symbol of so much—it point especially towards metamorphosis, whether literally (as in the life cycle of a butterfly) or metaphorically.

I considered calling it something clever like Metaformation, but then I returned to the simple, innocent title of Butterfly because it contains so much more richness of possibility. I can explore the symmetry and grace of the butterfly but also the struggle, effort and trudge of the caterpillar as well as the mysterious power within nature that can generate a certain kind of transcendence and dazzling, delicate beauty.

Dreaming in slow motion

When I was little, I had to perform. I had to learn to bow and look at the audience in a certain way. It all felt strange to me—not really natural. In private, I had a rather weird idea that improvising on the keys was just opening a door and letting the music take me through it into a new realm of love. I know! I was an odd kid. But I knew how far away from the competitions and examinations I wanted to get and honestly, I still do.

I was actually hungry to experience music in this way—I needed to understand it, to find more efficient ways to get to the magic place. So I devoured its shapes and patterns, feeding my inner musician. I hoped one day I might be able to take flight, to go off into the world. But as I got older, I conformed publicly, whilst privately just kept eating up the magic. And that was fine. But the hazy dream about flying free never completely died, even though I stopped performing publicly. Locked inside my studio like a chrysalis, I rearranged myself as a musician on a molecular level. The DNA is the same, but the outer form is not what it was.

That was a long dream! A kind of slow motion. I just kept going, flowing onwards with strange purpose towards an eventual emergence. This piece is about that continuing dream of munching delicious music, slow and unperturbed like a placid river.

Rare butterfly

This piece appeared one night when I needed solace... again! The kind of consolation that it gave me felt rare: fluid yet determined. Its soft, fluttering feeling made me think of a butterfly filmed in slow motion. Graceful, yet full of muscular effort.