Believe In Peace – Out Now!

Here it is, my brand new album, Believe In Peace. Click the play button while you read the rest of this, and download it if you like what you hear:

So, in case you’ve missed the rest of the info about it, Believe In Peace was recorded live in Minneapolis last summer, improvised in an exhibition of art by a wonderful artist called Geoff Bush.

Geoff’s work explores the symbols and themes of the I Ching, focussing on his meta-theme of ‘Believe In Peace’, hence the album title.

This picture is of one of my favourite works by Geoff, simply titled ‘I Ching’, and each of the four vertical surfaces of the cube has a different hexagram on it, and that’s what the four tracks on the album are named after.

So I sat down, surrounded by all this beautiful art, and played. And what you hear is exactly what I played. No edits. The only difference is the removal of a REALLY loud electrical hum that was all the way through – I think this is because I was playing just as the MASSIVE tornado touched down a mile away… the sirens were going off outside, and I’m assuming that’s going to mess with the energy supply. Anyway, the wonders of modern plug-ins for audio means I could clean it up with pretty much no discernable loss of anything else! Miraculous, eh?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I’ve decided to do something concrete towards the theme of ‘Believe In Peace’ – I’m going to donate a third of all the money I make from this to Reprieve, the Human Rights Charity. My initial thought was to put a £3 minimum on the download and give that to Reprieve, but I REALLY like the honest trust-based system of ‘Pay What You Think It’s Worth‘. I’d LOVE to still be able to give £3 per album. But I understand that some of you can’t afford to pay £9 for it. As usual, it’s entirely up to you – pay a pound, pay a hundred pound. Give it a listen first here and decide later. We’re grown-ups. If you want to help me afford to spend more time playing music, and help Reprieve in the process, you know what to do 🙂

Oh, the other thing – PleasePleasePleasePleasePlease tell your friends about it if you like it – post the link to facebook, click the facebook ‘like’ button, play it to people, tweet/blog about it, post it to forums you’re a part of… This is the nub of the sustainable future of independent music. Taking out adverts has NEVER been a profitable exercise – it’s a loss leader towards something else. It’s just not possible for proper indie artists to pay for ads. So it’s down to you. People knowing about my stuff is largely in your hands.