Higher Love Collective
This Is Higher Love (2004)

One of my favourite albums to make and be involved with. A unique synergy and time for the four singer-songwriter protagonists – we shared some crazy, beautiful stories and many adventures.

Featuring Laurence Shipstone, Marianne Forelius, Mel Ellis, Torbz, Gavin Spray, Matt Bishop & Carl Waye

From that tumult, this album was born…

R.I.P. Mel Ellis 2018
In Higher Loving Memory xx

Available for purchase/download at:

BANDCAMP

The Awakening
Into The Labyrinth (2006)

The beginning of a new chapter with new life which brought us to Glastonbury and kept us there.

Cher Lyn (xx RIP: in our prayers xx) painted the amazing cover art as part of her inspired art collection.

A compilation of my songs in their more raw form. Featuring Sarah Miller who wrote the lyrics for Price Of Life, inspired by the plight of the Palestinian people at the hands of a murderous and insidious state – a hot topic with the added impetus of 9-11 in the background. It was the final floodgate for the deep state to destroy the ancient Middle East.

The title track ‘SpaceTime’ was my first recording foray with my newly-acquired PANART Hang. It was the beginning of a 16 year relationship with that form of sound. Today, the community and creations inspired by the Hang can be found under ‘steel handpan’ as a generic term.

I really love the production on this album. Home-grown on a Yamaha VS2480 by the Wizard of Loz.

Featuring Torbz, Marianne Forelius, Laurence Shipstone, Joe Wilson (Rising Tide), Sarah Miller, Gavin Spray.

Available for purchase/download at:

BANDCAMP

Torbz
Halosynergen (2016)

I swore this album was going to be awesome. I was about 20% right.

Utterly blown away by my trip to the U.S. in 2014, I’d journeyed with my Handpan (a Dii Gaia) across the West Coast to North Carolina and shared some of my most expansive and connected times with my fellow handpan friends and makers. It was a journey that truly changed my perspective in life and I also began to feel ‘competent’ at playing my handpan.

Due to time, family and energetic constraints, I was always slow at producing recorded works and the ambition with which I started this project soon fizzled out as life had other plans.

However, I did do some justice to the music recordings that were started and inspired in the US. The first two tracks really spoke to me as more of the sound I was trying to achieve and the subsequent effort I put into production paid off. Augmented in the UK, Californipan really captured the feel of my travels and I still haven’t done a final mix of Mercy Street…

The remaining tracks were really an impatient collection of recordings that I’d accrued and needed to release something for people to buy whilst playing publicly. There’s a logical fallacy in there somewhere as a creative artist with production values…but I released them anyway, warts and all. Track 6 was a real ugly, unfinished idea for me, despite using the magnificent Pantheon Steel Halo (‘Torzion’ scale) – I wish I could go back there to revisit.

Featuring Torbz, Laurence Shipstone, Nalini Blossom, Marina, Scott Ralph, Seano Skylark, ZenDub (Kai Norton) & Samantha Archer

Available for purchase/download at:

BANDCAMP

Torbz
Half Circle (2018)

After a number of key life events and developments, the focus of my musical attention had changed somewhat.

I spent time with the Zephyr and Gaia handpans and started to record a few sessions jamming with friends, playing through a few motifs and ideas.

A break-through in my heart connection to my playing had brought me to new places – a renewed open-ness, despite my inability to bear ripe fruit.

It was precursor to discovering new skills on guitar, from playing handpan so fanatically for years. New rhythms and precussive strength in my fingers translated into finding a new guitar-playing style in the years to follow.

Track 8 was the only other solo track I had recorded with my Halo but at a time when my fingers still didn’t really have much understanding of the steel.

Track 9 was a very bold attempt at electrickery.

Featured a live gig recording of Mel singing her amazing “Song for the Earth”, included as a tribute following her death from cancer in 2018.

Featuring Torbz, Arjun Magee, Josh Rivera, Sam Welbourne

Available for purchase/download at:

BANDCAMP