The Ludwig Variations is a new album, released in October 2020 Back in March 2020, soon after the start of the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK, Mike recorded a series of improvisations on his century old Ludwig accordion whose creaks and croaks, rattles and wheezes present a challenge which others[…]
This article first appeared in the Children issue of Unknown Public. I came across a statistic recently which really made me stop in my tracks. Apparently only one per cent of the population of Britain is actively involved in any form of music-making. For anyone making their living through[…]
Originally published in fRoots magazine under the title ‘Stoned Folk’ Anyone interested in early folk instruments should really start looking at lithophones. They certainly don’t come any older. The word “lithophone” doesn’t actually appear in the Oxford dictionaries, but its meaning is pretty clear: litho = stone > phone =[…]
This piece was written for the book Eye & Ear (Schott 2004) in which Christoph Wagner invited a range of musicians and writers to each write a commentary on a postcard depicting musicians. The book also contained a CD with early recordings complementing the images. The occasion is a wedding[…]
This was written in response to an old school friend who shared an email about his early musical memories. What I have written was not intended for publication but gave me the chance to document some records that had a formative influence. I sometimes think back to records I liked[…]