Talking about my music

The music on this website as of 30th April 2025 represents two years, since starting my music studies, of experimenting with a range of musical styles. There is a lot of music here, so I’d like to discuss some of it.

Mythos is inspired by fantasy game soundtracks, particularly Elder Scrolls and Jeremy Soule’s work, although I tried to give it its own unique style. The use of harps and choirs makes me picture it as being set in the islands of mythical Greece, moving through the day in the life of a protagonist, starting with him waking up to a morning sunrise (Dawn Wash), feeling the urge to go on some quest (Call of the Horizon), getting on a boat and sailing across the seas (Life at Sea), walking up some kind of mountain trail as the sun’s setting (Golden Trails), and then exploring the forest at night (Secret Moons).

Dream machine started when I came back from university for the final time, having finished all my studies, and feeling like the student chapter of my life had finished and a new one was beginning. The first song I made was New Leaf, which represents this feeling, as a kind of expression and excitement of the joy of always being able to start afresh and turn over a … new leaf. A Bigger Splash came from walking down a river, where I looked at the river, and tried to imagine the musical representation of that river, if that makes sense. Then that synth riff that plays throughout came into my head, and from there I built the track with that river scene in mind. In Between Dreams is quite powerful for me, because I made it on the day my grandpa passed away. Maybe as a way of processing things, I decided to play the piano a bit, and from there edited it and layered it. For me, it represents how my grandpa’s soul has moved from his long dream of life, and is now entering into a new one, and that track embodies the space in between where the soul passes through. My grandpa will always be a great figure in my life and massively supported my musical endeavours. It is a bit sad that he couldn’t hear my new music, but maybe somewhere he can, and either way, he is still ever present in that music, and my life going forward. Haruki’s Mystic Flute is named after the great author Haruki Murakami and was inspired by a passage I read in one of his books. He describes a dream he had when he was younger, which he remembers vividly, of someone playing beautiful music on a saxophone. He describes it in great depth, and about how the sax player plays with a pure mystical soulful style, and so I, feeling inspired after going on a nice bike ride around a lake, decided to try make a piece of music that was like the music he described. Although I used a flute and synths, rather than a solo sax.

Zest just comes from making groovy, feel good, slightly whacky music. Really not much to say about it apart from that I had great fun making it. The first track Jumping the Gun features vocals from my good friend Janice at Leeds Conservatoire.

Swimmer is partially inspired by Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. I wanted to make something that was subtle but interesting, using mostly different textures that sound nice to the ear, which weave in and out, to try and build an atmosphere. The tracks represent the journey of a swimmer, from the surface (Bubbler), to moving with the currents (Drifter), to swimming under water (Diver), to going back up to the surface (Brighter), and then going back onto land (Greener).

The Golden Beam is named after the pub next to where I spent most of my time in Leeds. It’s some of the first tracks I made when I lived there, and the music carries a slightly darker, trippy feel to them, resonating with the often grungy urban feel of the streets of Leeds in the winter.

Low Poly Fusion is just playing around with the idea of making a soundtrack for a retro, Nintendo Wii style racer game, combining fast paced grooves with airy, floaty synths. Some of the tracks are quite ridiculous, borderline questionable, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Miscellaneous is what it says, just a collection of tracks that I like but don’t know where else to put them. Awakening came from reading the Wukong book Journey to the West, and pictured it as the moment Wukong awakens from his long rest having been imprisoned for eons in stone. Spring Tide, despite its joyous appearance, actually came as an end point of a period of quite high stress. On my course, we had a thing where everyone, at some point of the year, has to go up in front of the class and present something they’re working on, in order to get feedback for it. I dreaded this, as public speaking isn’t my forte, but also because I was in a period of a kind of creative lull, and didn’t really have anything new to show. After spending a week making different tracks, and not liking them, I despaired. Eventually I had a track ready, but then the day before my presentation, I felt geared up to make something new, and that was Spring Tide. I liked it, and the presentation went well.  

Early Creations is a collection of things I made before this this 2 year period, when I was living in Southampton, studying philosophy. I have very fond memories of this time. Maybe I’m viewing it with a rose tint, since actually, it was pretty stressful being a student, but making music was always a fun release from the stress. The apex of bliss in that period were days when I had nothing on, and I could wake up, sun shining, birds chatting, and sink my teeth into a full day of pure music creation. The picture of the album is my room window, which looked out to a nice bit of forest. Good times.

The music of my band Mississippi Voss in many ways marks the birth of my musical journey. Growing up, I had done lessons and achieved grades in the piano, clarinet, violin and funnily enough, the recorder, but in secondary school I started to stop, since the traditional training style of rigorously practicing things like scales and old classical pieces didn't appeal to my brain at the time, and homework started to pile up. But I was still interested in music, and it was hard to escape it in my very musical school and household. My dad got me logic pro at some point, which got me into music making, but initially I wouldn't do it all that much. That was until my good friend and singer Paddy asked me to play piano with him for a lunchtime performance. We did that a few times, and that got me back into playing piano. Then we started going to each other's houses and tried making a few songs. Push came to shove and a year later we made our first songs and released them under Mississippi Voss. And from then on, I became music obsessed. We then released an album and played at a festival, and later I decided to study music , which brings me to this point.

Thank you for reading.