Pigeon post

Making a start and moving in a myriad of directions

"There's a girl that wants to start," sings Natasha Khan from Bat for Lashes in the first line of her song "Priscilla." I’m confident that she is singing about me here. Perhaps about you too? This month’s newsletter is about messenger pigeons, jumping over roadblocks, and allowing yourself to flow in a myriad of directions all at once, if that’s where your creative river takes you.

A friend recently reintroduced me to the amazing back catalogue of the art pop phenomenon that is Bat for Lashes. I’m sold now, and I cannot understand how I have happily gone about my business creating music and surrounding myself with the musical worlds of My Brightest Diamond, Cat Power, PJ Harvey, Jesca Hoop, Regina Spektor, and Björk without realising the extraordinary musical force of Bat for Lashes.

Bat for Lashes is releasing a new album, "The Dream of Delphi," on 31st May 2024. She is even coming to Oxford to perform it in June, but sadly I missed out on tickets. Judging by the two singles released so far, this album will be a big statement of flowing piano, pulsating arpeggio synthesizers, skipping beats, harp swirls, and smooth vocal layers blending into big reverbs and perfectly orchestrated string arrangements. I’ve added some Bat For Lashes tracks to my monthly "From the Seahorse’s Mouth" Spotify playlist so that you can get listening. Find it here.

Pigeon in the post

Pigeon received 03.04.2024 at 4.15pm BST

Earlier this month, I received a package in the post. A set of peculiar-looking pink toes were poking out of the cardboard parcel, as if the thing inside had attempted to break out of the box. I carefully unwrapped the parcel to find that the peculiar pink feet belonged to a possibly more peculiar creature: a heavy cast iron pigeon. It isn’t every day that you receive a pigeon in the post, hence the above photo documentation.

Truth be told, I ordered him myself—the pink-toed iron pigeon. Nevertheless, when he arrived at my door with his toes poking out, I felt like the main character in the new play that I have started writing. The show, which I have called "Pigeons in Transit," has recently been awarded support from a theatre festival. It will premiere in the late summer, and I will reveal more details soon.

Here’s a little teaser:

Pigeons in Transit follows a woman grappling with the overwhelming weight of environmental despair as she experiences a surreal awakening when mysterious parcels appear on her doorstep. Each parcel contains a live pigeon, delivered daily without a trace of the sender. The boxes accumulate. Notre Dame is burning. She is thinking about freezing her eggs. Simultaneously, clips on her phone warns of pigeons working as biotech spies for the government. Loaded with surveillance technology, the pigeons spy on the public, collecting private data.

I’ve been fascinated by pigeons for a while. I vividly remember the flock of pigeons dancing across the blue September sky in Glasgow when I first sensed that new life was starting to grow within me. Fast forward a year and nine months, and I was watching my child take her first steps while trying to chase down a pigeon in our garden that seemed to not be able to take off and fly. The next day, our lawn was oversewn with feathers. A predator more voracious than a one-year-old, perhaps a cat or a fox, must have brought an end to the poor bird’s life.

Although my nearest and dearest have reached their capacity for listening to any more of my pigeon-related facts and discoveries, I am proud that it has once again paid off to follow my nose, or my niche interests rather.

If you have been receiving my newsletters for a while and perhaps also read posts on my other, sound art centered substack

Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones

, you will already be familiar with my deep devotion to things like pedestrian tunnels, bathroom graffiti (latrinalia) and UK rivers and waterways. Although it can sometimes be a challenge that my creative interests seem to be always moving in a myriad of directions, it is such a joy when these separate ideas and directions find their place in a song, a play or in some other piece of work. If this is also how your brain works, I encourage you to just jump in and make the most of it. Explore, dig in and find the concept for your next novel, the theme for your next photo series or the words for your new album. The worst thing that can happen is that your friends and family learn a bit more about geology, beekeeping or Ash Dieback. In fact, my friend and collaborator

olivia rafferty

has just written an entire geology album and she is starting a kickstarter on Monday to help fund the release. Check it out here.

Jumping over roadblocks

Like the girl who wants to start in Bat for Lashes’ song Priscilla I have been itching to release a new body of work for a while. While I do have enough new songs for a debut album, a sophomore album and a third one too, successful funding bids to cover mixing, mastering and release costs have not yet materialised. Of course I have also been very busy lately chasing pigeons, following rivers and recording dead toads in pedestrian tunnels. Instead of boring you with more excuses I want to share this pep-talk with you by

Maggie Smith

writer of the substack For Dear Life. When I read it, it was a timely, pure, and precise kick in my butt to get started mixing those new songs myself, rather than wait for money to pay someone to do it for me.

I left with the important reminder that there are no perfect conditions under which to create art, so don’t wait for them. There will always be constraints—time, budget, materials and equipment. If you’re waiting for all of the roadblocks to be cleared before you begin, you might be waiting all your life. So stop waiting. Just do your best to put something into the world that wasn't there yesterday.

Read the full substack here.

So I have made a start. I’m currently mixing four new songs that will make up an Ep called Peach Pine Ocean. Some of the songs will be released as singles over the Summer and the full Ep will come out in early Autumn.

Now, I hope you too will get started on something that you have been putting off in wait for the perfect conditions. I can’t wait to hear what you create.

Things that made it into my notebook

• I had the great honour of playing support for the band Remorae (formerly Folkatron Sessions) at Tap Social in Oxford this week. They are a collective of folk, jazz and electronic musicians from the UK and France and they create a beautiful blend of trad folk through the lens of experimental and ambient electronica. They’ve just released a new single Johnny’s On The Water that I recommend you listen to (included in this month’s Spotify playlist).

• If you are into mixing and music production Aubrey Witfiel’s short video tutorials on instagram contain a lot of golden nuggets. They have really helped me get up to date with some of the newer mixing techniques and kept me inspired with new ideas to try out throughout the mix process.

  aubreywhitfield

  

  A post shared by @aubreywhitfield

• Next month on Wed 22 May I will be supporting Josephine Foster when her tour hits Oxford. Divine Schism presents, it takes place at Common Ground and the one and only Megan Henwood is also in the lineup. Get your tickets here.