As The Bracken Dance

Aim

This is my first studio album as a solo artist. To make this release a reality, this Crowdfunder allows this possibility!

As The Bracken Dance is my first studio album as a solo artist. I've gone a wonky way about things, previously favouring releasing more experimental releases: Field recordings on mountains, live release on remote islands, home recordings and singles. As The Bracken Dance is a collection of ten songs exploring themes around enclosure, connection (and disconnection) to the land, to place and one another.

The idea behind the album...

In those blazing heady heights of Summer, I had a dream in which I strolled along the edge of a corn field. The skies awash with golden rays, the lilt of birdsong from every corner of that little universe… when England is like that, there really is no better place to be.

By my side was the poet and song collector, John Clare.

We spoke in detail of rectifying the ills and wrongs of English land access and ownership. Yes, I have some weird dreams. From that dream came a song, and the concept for much of the album. The parallels between post-pandemic & Brexit Britain echo the early 19th century in England. As the Napoleonic Wars curtailed European travel for nearly two decades, England’s artists turned to England for inspiration. This fuelled the Romantic Era of poetry and painting. Like then, from 2020, this forced us to re-assess our relationship to national identity. In 2026, many of us recognise how much of England’s Green and Pleasant Land is closed off for public access, and like the early 19th century, the feeling of suffocation from enclosure gave birth to re-assessing of our relationship to England, to folk culture, to our land, to ourselves. England has since been undergoing a re-evaluation of itself, and its identity, and the rise of a modern folk culture from it . It’s up to us to shape it, just as the artists and poets of the Romantic Era did.

This album explores those parallels, with recitals of poetry and references from the 18th and 19th century, through a present lens. This is an album rooted firmly in the here and now, heeding words from the past, with an eye on the future.

The goal of £5000 is the minimum needed to produce the 12'' Vinyl and CDs in advance. There are many other costs involved (recordings, design work, illustrations, mixing & mastering, videos, etc) however, being able to cover the bulk of the advance production costs, would be amazing.

Anything above £5000? £7000 would cover video costs, and anything close to £10000 would cover illustration, design, photography... that would be incredible. I'm proper excited to have worked on this project and I hope you'll join me on the journey.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 3rd November 2026 at 6:00pm