Phil Hague and I have been looking at the need for blame. We were commissioned to write this show in early 2020 and whereas in the two year hiatus many things have moved on and become irrelevant, or at least less pressing, this seems to have become more and more pertinent. 

Why blame? I had just performed the very first version of Relentless Approach, and having spent a year combing through newspaper articles about global politics, climate change and studying how we process and deal with trauma, I was interested in why we so often feel the need to blame. It seems to have become a reflex, without actually questioning what we are doing. 'heads must roll'... I knew this would take more than one creative brain so I enlisted the help of the brilliant Phil Hague.

The more we look into it (and bear in mind we've had two years now) the more complicated it gets. You can't have justice without it, and by extension forgiveness. If the person who is at fault doesn't take the blame, what happens then? Can you blame someone - and expect that to serve a purpose - if they have no sense of shame? (Can you tell which politician I'm thinking about right now? Or are there too many?) Then there's scapegoating, gaslighting, ghosting... it gets overwhelming... but we've found it, a clear line through it all.

We've started to see blame as a fragile thing, something unique and vital to our ability to survive and thrive in groups and this makes the manipulation of it all the more... eh... blame-worthy.

The gigs are booked, look out for announcements on twitter and instagram.

I arrived at Cove Park earlier today to finish the new and improved version of The Relentless Approach of Better Times. After the first performance I was incredibly drained and realised that free improvising the soundtrack was not the safest way to keep performing this. Taken on by Cryptic for a Cryptic Night on November 18th, I was in the position of having to write a soundtrack to the film.

The big problem was did I still believe that better times are coming? At the start of the year I had to admit to myself that actually no, I no longer believed that to be the case. Isfet had run riot through political systems across the world, people with seemingly nothing but contempt for the wellbeing of others were suddenly in charge of dealing with a global pandemic, and climate deniers were being given the power to legislate against sustainability. What a clusterfuck. 

I learned this year that I find despair pretty boring though, so an interesting challenge presented itself. I can't stand on stage and perform something that I fundamentally don't believe in and giving in seems too easy, so the only other option was to dig deeper. Optimism is only foolish if it is unexamined and I think the only thing that is going to drag us forwards through this living Hieronymus Bosch painting is a sense or galvanised positivity. It's the one tiny cloud catching the sun that reminds you that it won't rain forever. It's the one tiny leaf that is still fighting when the rest of the plant has died. You don't have to feel it every minute of every day but you do have to search for it and when you find it you have to nourish it because as soon as you realise how much you give a shit you'll really start to fight for it. Now is the time.

I wouldn't have revisited this show if I didn't have to, but I'm very glad I did. I now have ten days to pull it all together, switch some of the edits, cut some of the good but distracting bits and find the best way to show just how much I believe that better times are relentlessly coming.

Please join me at the CCA in Glasgow on the 18th November.

Last week saw the one year anniversary of my last gig - the longest I have gone without a gig since I was eight years old. Not a live gig in sight, and yet there's still so much admin!

I think we have all had to reckon with a new sense of identity, away from the people we would normally spend time with and perhaps away from the work that has until now consumed a huge amount of our time.

Thankfully at the end of 2020 I started on the Abram Wilson Foundation Professional Development Programme, which means I meet with my mentor every month and with my strategist every two months. It's an intense process but one I'm getting a huge amount from. It is allowing me to look at what has been lost in the last year - both positive and negative - and also what has been gained, which is a lot of rest and a more fun, explorative approach to composing, demons be damned.

I can't wait to share what I'm working on, so I'm really having to resist the urge to sling it all on Bandcamp before it's ready.

I've been completely stuck recently. It's like writer's block, but more than that. It's a curious sense of futility that somehow carries a sense of liberation, and it's a sense of freedom that carries with it a huge sense of loss. 
Since lockdown began, seeing all our gigs get cancelled, followed by music festivals, flights, and ultimately the disintegration of the music scene all over the world, I have found it impossible to make a sound. I'm finding this hard to write, not because it is an emotional subject - which it is, but because I really don't know what to say and that is unusual for me. Maybe that's not it, maybe it's more that I don't know who I'm saying it to, or why I'm raising my voice at all. On one hand I'm enjoying the time to let my mind wander, and on the other I'm worried about my focus giving way, atrophying.
Gigs will come back, festivals will come back. And won't we all be gloriously rusty, weeping with sorrow and relief and completely, beautifully vulnerable.

It has been a few months now since the last Bitches Brew, but fear not: we are working hard behind the scenes with some news to follow in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I have been connecting with like-minded people doing incredible work towards a more balanced music scene. With that in mind, here is the first blog in a series which focusses on women who are part of the same international movement as Bitches Brew.

First up: Women Warriors: The Voices of Change - Friday, September 20, 2019 at 8:00 pm Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Centre, NYC

'Women Warriors: The Voices of Change multimedia concert performed by Orchestra Moderne NYC, under the direction of Amy Andersson, features the music of eight renowned female film composers and presents 800 years of women fighting for human rights and equality. This 80-minute interactive experience is a socially and culturally relevant world premiere concert which includes historical visuals from the past to present day. Women Warriors: The Voices of Change celebrates the strength and heroism of female global activists fighting for human, civil, and minority rights, environmental causes, and gender equality.'

Amazing music performed by amazing musicians, that 'celebrates the strength and heroism of female global activists.' What a brilliant project. Follow this link to their website, check out the podcast and if you're in the area go and support them.