Sitting on a beach in North Cornwall, dramatic clouds wrestle with a determined late-August sun. The kaleidoscope sky swims with colour as dusk approaches.
Ancient stories and songs, a mysterious lightness of spirit – even a joy – over beauty, and that sense of hope and purpose. It sometimes seems that we are surrounded by – crowded by – hints of the transcendent.
Comprised of wistful major-seventh chords with their unexpected harmony, “Is there One who is beyond, outside and who calls?”
Nick Beston is playing the saxophone throughout this album. We first became friends after creating a pop-up jazz café in a bus in New Cross, South London. He has an incredible sense of melody and harmony: the centre of our five-piece band when playing these songs live. It is Nick’s notes that open this album…
Lester Barnes – known for brilliant film scores – creates the arrangement including the nostalgic music box riff that invokes memories of fairy-tales, kings and hints of a purpose.
I wrote this song after all of the others to deliberately sit at the front of the album – to set the scene for the “story” of the rest of “Lavish”. My hope is to defiantly point us towards the questions that I think our culture is wired to induce us to suppress – and yet those that perhaps are the most important ones of all to be asking.
Calling
There’s a whisper of love
that starts a story;
a wind-borne rumour
that’s reaching to me.
There’s an echo of a song,
a sweet melody
and it hangs on the breeze.
“I’m calling for you, my love.
“I’m calling for you, my love.”
There’s a reflection of light
that pierces the grey,
dappled refractions
hint dawning of day.
There’s a spectrum of colour,
an escaping ray,
and it warms to crimson.
“I’m calling for you…”
There’s a vague sense of hope
that pervades your heart,
it keeps you breathing
in the dark.
There’s a tale of a purpose
in which you might play a part:
your soul is dreaming.
“I’m calling for you…”