Hello boys and girls - welcome along to another radio Owlsnest special! Join me as I investigate and excavate my intensely intimate solo album of 2021, “Fugitive Pieces”. Out of all the solo albums I’ve recorded so far, this one resonates profoundly for me.

Of course, I’ll get into the songwriting and the recording of the album, but I’ll also touch upon the psychological aspects of its creation; particularly it’s birth, which emanated from a need to combat a debilitating depression. The record was written and recorded over a three week period. I set myself the task of writing, in total, a song a day … lyrics were not written down. At the microphone, I sang and created from a stream of consciousness, relying on naked emotion and vivid memories to conjure the pictures. The songs relate to emotional touchstones in my life … personal relationships and the compound fear and deep joys that these connections printed and left upon my heart. It was me going back to basics - just sat at the piano. Simplicity and minimalism instructed the production. And my vocals were captured within the first three or four takes. I feel my singing on this album is amongst my best.

Although this album resides rather under the radar within my collection (possibly because of its “down tone” and low key blue essence), it does feel to me as my most honest and real. I couldn’t have conceived this project at any other time in my life, and I knew I could never again reproduce the spirit in which it was created - at request or on a whim. That three week period was wholly unique, and I sensed it would not, and could not be grasped again.

I hope you can join me. I’ve wanted for quite some time now to tell the personal story of “Fugitive Pieces”.

Martin