Just returned from Magic Garden Studios having ‘mastered’ this album and I’m very pleased with the outcome! It has been a great pleasure once again working with Gavin Monaghan and his excellent assistant Joe Murray as on The Glen. If I had met a producer like Gavin years ago this would not be my second solo album!

On the other hand I’m glad because my work has matured with years of live performance, songs  have found their full flavour and are ready for consumption. Besides Gavin was still a boy when the opening song “Unpacking” was written. As I listened to it tonight, with Mike Hurley’s splendid arrangement,  I saw myself more than forty years earlier performing the song for the very first time, just after I’d written it, Belfast, Spring 1969. This is the oldest song on the album but chronology is not the main reason why I have chosen it as the opening track. The song is a celebration of Spring in the North.  After three years on the road I was back home and seeing it with fresh eyes. The world was full of optimism and vigour, on the threshold of a period of intense change globally and locally. The first moon landing happened later that summer. But, so did the arrival of troops on the streets of Belfast.

Where Napoleon in stony silence lies
his ear to the ground
as up the lough in the morning
reinforcements steam towards town

I suppose that this album is really about change. Change turbulent like spring, full of bright surprises and dark disappointments. Politics change, ethics change, people change. Familiar landscapes morph and only a few prominent features and elements are left as reminders of who we once were. This  album is a view of that change through the prism of exile and the distance of time.

Coming home from across the water
when dawn dips bloody hands into the sea
and the hooded moon turns blind eye on the headland
lighthouse flashing a reluctant refugee

It is across the trajectory of those decades of upheaval that these songs are pitched. They are about people and places. They tell stories of love and betrayal, allegiance and manipulation, dislocation, despair and hope. Ultimately, though ‘Crossing The Sound’ is about the fragile triumph of love over hate.

We sail beneath the rainbow
out on a troubled tide
caught in sharp collision
tall waves on every side
between island and mainland
all certainties are drowned
and only hope keeps us afloat
crossing the sound

I can’t wait for you to hear it and savour  sweet trumpet by Sam Wooster, the sweeping bow of fiddler Ann Jones, the warm deep double bass of Nick Jurd, the rippling keys of Mike Hurley’s piano and the soft shuffle of his drumming like the sea washing through shingle. A massive thank you to Peter Maxwell Dixon for his sensitive expertise in  recording piano, trumpet, fiddle and bass on location. Vocals, Guitar, drums and backing vocals were recorded by Gavin at the Magic Garden.

If you wish to reserve a special numbered/signed limited first edition ‘Tin with album and lyric book’ please visit the shop and order now. And believe me this would make an elegant and unique gift for a friend this season.