The Pivot

Well, here we are again my friends. Album time. This is no.3 for the year, and no.13 overall, which is quite a feat really isn't it? 13 albums. Although that's stretched over 17 years, so you'd probably assume I'd made a whole bunch more in that time, but I suppose if you include my solo stuff, Marta Mist, Ghosting Season, etc. it's probably closer to about 2.7m albums in that time, but you get what I mean. I fucking love making albums.

It's sort of what inspired The Pivot, weirdly enough. 

No, it's not a dedication to defensive midfielders, or that bit in Friends where they move the sofa, or anything else, no, it was more a note on myself and how I really just fucking love making music and releasing it. 

Having spent 17 years sort of zipping about the music business, but never really getting too far into it, it gave me an odd vantage point to see other musicians and bands, and how they grow, move, twist, distort, or pivot, into something else entirely. For a while, I was obsessed with it, and the fact I hadn't found my pivot yet. I saw bands break up, or go on hiatus, and members move into film scoring, or become youtubers, or producers, or go into more educational stuff, or just stop altogether and find something else to do. That was their pivot - they started in a band, they made a whole bunch of music, and then they found something else which better suited them. I love that thought, and if you've not read J-Zone's book, I'd advise you give it a spin, as it's sort of what I'm on about - he's a rapper who gets a lot of love, but then his career sort of stagnates when labels and things get in the way, and before he knows it, he's playing shitty dive bars to 3 people again. So he quits - just up and quits, and writes this book, which leads him on to being a teacher, and eventually, the drummer in a low key funk band. He's happy, he's content, and all he had to do was look inside himself and think 'nah' and pivot to something more worthwhile.

For a long time, I was searching my brain for whatever my pivot was. What do I want to do? I'm getting old now, and I can't keep just doing this all the time I kept saying to myself, despite the fact that I really, really want to just keep doing this, so this album sort of became my own pivot - into my own little bubble, my own little cottage industry. I figured I could just make music, release it, and tour it all myself and still be ok. I didn't need anything else, so why would I want to stop doing it? 

So yeah, anyway, here's to finding the thing you want to do in life and being happy doing it. Pre-order is open now, and the album releases on May 5th.