“Dense without being heavy, intelligent without being esoteric, this is elegant, nuanced music that has been finely crafted and richly woven.”
Glenn Kimpton, Folk Radio UK
“His music is full of pangs for his home country, the guitar playing of people like Bert Jansch and Ry Cooder, as well as British ambient influences like Brian Eno and Lamb. It’s atmospheric and it bends around and into some of those traditional Southern folk rhythms and echoes across the Appalachian Mountains.”
Elizabeth Alker, BBC Radio 3
I’m a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer. I was born and raised in Kentucky, then played music and worked in recording studios in and around New York City before moving to the UK. I’m now full-time in East London after splitting my time between the capital and Devon for a few years.
And now…
What You Said
I’m very excited to announce that my new album, What You Said, will be released on March 6th next year. It continues in the vein of my last two, UNSUNG and You Are Here, with instrumentals built around acoustic guitar (mostly) with some amazing performances by LA cellist Michelle Packman, and all sorts of odd, interesting and beautiful things going on in and around the tracks.
Two singles are coming out before the album release. The first, Four Bent Barn, has received airplay on the BBC; the second, The Sea Dreams of You, is out on February 6th.
The album includes several solo guitar improvisations – improvising in the studio is where everything starts, and occasionally I’ll get something good enough that it can stand on its own. These are sprinkled throughout the album; I think they serve as a nice contrast to the denser tracks.
I’ll update with more news, including a couple of singles, as the album release date comes closer. I can’t wait for you to hear the new music!
You Are Here
My previous album, You Are Here was released in August of 2024. It’s a collection of songs that began during the pandemic but were developed and finished over the last six months. The past few years have seen some tough times for everyone; I lost people I loved, and severed connection to places that meant a great deal to me. The songs on the album reflect those experiences, as well as the sense of hope that got us all through those times. In a (small) break from Unsung, there’s one vocal track on You Are Here. Several of the songs feature the LA-based cellist Michelle Packman, continuing the thread of incorporating strings into what I do that started with Unsung. London-based acoustic bassist Reggie Jones also contributed some excellent playing. Most everything was recorded in my small studio in Devon; the studio in France is no longer, and dearly missed, but life goes on. The crew at SI Studios in scenic Old Forge, Pennsylvania, where I mixed my album Marginal Street back in the day, gave me a hand as well: Tom Borthwick mastered the release, and Wiggy, engineer extraordinaire, served as a better pair of ears than I’ll ever have as I worked on the mixes.
Trivia: The background for the cover is a closeup of an old paint thinner can from my grandfather’s sign painting shop, proving once again that abstract expressionism is where you find it.
Archives
I released two singles, “Early Dark” and “It’s Like This”, and an EP, My Own Devices, in 2020; they received airplay across the UK, including BBC Radio 6 (Gideon Coe) and Radio 3 (Elizabeth Alkerman and Lopa Kothari). The following full-length album, Unsung, was released on January 29, 2021, and enjoyed an enthusiastic reception: Album of the Month on Folk Radio UK, and airplay on BBC Radio3 and Radio6.
My music spans genres, incorporating country and soul music from Kentucky, along with influences ranging from Miles Davis, to Talk Talk, to King Tubby.
I collaborated with Irish new-folk singer/songwriter/harpist Brona McVittie on two albums and many live performances from 2016 through 2020. I played steel on and co-produced her album The Man in the Mountain, which was included in the Guardian’s Top Ten folk releases of 2020.
I’ve released a number of songs with videos over the past few years; you can find the videos for them below.
Things look (and sound) way better if you set the video to 1080HD.
Here are two videos from my EP, “GO”, from 2016.
GO is available on iTunes and Bandcamp.
My previous release is Marginal Street, also available on iTunes and Bandcamp.
