Help me make my debut album!

Aim

I am finally making the debut solo album of my dreams! I need your help to pay the musicians for their time.

HIIIII!

I’m Faye MacCalman and I’m a saxophonist/clarinettist and experimental songwriter and I make music blending jazz, improvisation, electronica and art-pop based in Newcastle. Some of my biggest inspirations are John Coltrane, Kate Bush, Henry Threadgill, Joni Mitchell, Vi Redd, Sun Ra, Bjork and Fiona Apple. My first live gig experiences were Queen Britney Spears with my Dad and my mum singing her heart out in rock band rehearsals while I snacked on raisins.

Photo by Victoria Wai.

I am also bandleader of jazz-art-rockers Archipelago (ft best buds John Pope and Christian Alderson), and a lot of you probably know me as a collaborator with some very classy north east heads like Richard Dawson, Maximo Park, David Brewis (of Field Music fame), Me Lost Me, Dextro and many more who have all inspired me a lot over the years..But now it’s time for me to make my solo album! 

The album will be released on the excellent New Jazz and Improvised Music label, a grassroots Newcastle label, and I am very excited and scared! But the studio is now booked for THIS NOVEMBER and there's no turning back, the drama.

I have been working on this music in the background for the past 7 years, including collecting stories from the general public about their experiences of mental illness, hidden emotions and generally the stuff we’re not encouraged to talk about, and finding ways to weave my own personal experience of mental and physical illness with tales of misogyny, magic and freedom.

photo by Ken Drew.

BACK STORY:

(TW suicide)

I have always been drawn to emotionally honest stories where people have talked openly about their mental  / human struggles and questioning conventional ideas of 'normality'. I think these stories vitally connect us and have certainly made me feel less alone. Unfortunately a few years ago I was bereaved by suicide, which had a huge impact on me. It brought home the reality for me that its not just me that needs this connection, care and conversation, but a vast amount of people, and I wanted to channel my experiences into something that actively went against upholding the usual taboos.  

INVISIBLE REAL:

In 2020 I created an audiovisual project called ‘Invisible Real’.  I invited the public to anonymously answer questions about topics like the stigma they had experienced, what their internal world would look if it was a place, and how their identity shifted when unwell. The variety in the submissions was amazing, from the comically surreal to the sad and hopeful. I wanted to create a world where all emotions are welcome and our inner worlds become places full of possibility. 

 I collaged these stories to create lyrics for new music with floating fabric projections by Rhian Cooke and sound spatialisation by Nikki Sheth that took us on an adventure, and over 600 people visited the first version at Cheltenham Jazz Festival in 2020! When I was accepted onto an artist residency at The Glasshouse ICM I extended the project further with incredible live musicians and friends (Beccy Owen - Keys/voice, John Pope - Bass/Voice, Elaine Cheng - Keys/Voice) more visuals and more raw stories in 2024. I was blown away by how people have resonated with this music, and how therapeutic it is as a process to perform in. 

Here's a gorgeous video by Rob Irish from the last Invisible Real performance in 2024 to give you an idea of how this music sounds:

THIS ALBUM

Alongside Invisible Real, I have been writing solo music for the past 7 years, exploring how I can use my instruments as songwriting tools outside their usual expectations, using my voice more and blending electronics in, fusing improvised freedom with tales of alien fish and vengeful witches. This music has soundtracked and soothed my most personal struggles, inspired by a healthy combination of misogyny, mental/ chronic illness, magic, improvisation and my love of pop bangers. This year Richard Dawson invited me to support him on several of his UK tour dates and it was amazing to bring this music to rooms full of people, and helped me build the confidence to record it. 

I'd been trying to find a way to choose what to do for my album - should it be Invisible Real or my other solo stuff? Then I realised they go together - I can put my money where my mouth is and meet the vulnerability people have shown me by combining my stories with theirs. 

I want to convey that sensitivity and vulnerability can be excitingly human and something to have fun with, rather than embarrassing. For me this whole body of work is unlike anything I’ve made before, and I think the value of having these different anonymous voices coming together, sharing truthful things that we’re told to pipe down about, makes this work very unique. 

Photo by Victoria Wai ft artwork by Rhian Cooke. 

THE TEAM

I have assembled an incredible all woman band of:

Katy Trigger -Bass/ Vox

Jemma Freese - Keys/ Vox

Romarna Campbell - Drums 

This will be the first time I’ve played my music with an all woman band which means a lot to me. We are recording at Blank Studios in Newcastle with the extremely clever Sam Grant in November/December.

WHY A CROWDFUNDER?

It’s very important to me that all artists involved get paid fairly for this, especially at a time when so many artists are struggling. I have not been able to secure funding for this, but I am lucky to have support from the New Jazz and Improvised Music label which will be supporting me some of the way. I am asking for your support to pay these amazing musicians for our rehearsals, studio time, travel and accommodation. If there is anything else raised, this will go towards mixing and mastering costs.

ENCOURAGING WORDS PEOPLE HAVE SAID ABOUT ME TO GIVE ME SOME CRED HERE: 

• 'Moving...I lost myself' - Huw Stephens, BBC6 Music
• 'Absurdly talented jazz polymath' - NARC Magazine
• 'Providing food for thought on what jazz is and can become' Kevin Le Gendre, British Council
• 'Effortlessly virtuosic' Neil March, Trust The Doc 

HOW YOU CAN HELP / REWARDS

There’s a whole lotta ways! If you’re strapped for cash, just sharing this around is most helpful.

For the cold hard cash options, these include:

• Pre-ordering the physical or digital album
• A gorgeous tee designed by Me Lost Me on high quality AS Colour Block material. 
• I'm offering discounted recording sessions where I can play on your album for a half or whole day. 
• I'm also offering home iPhone recordings for your track if you don't have access to a studio, yes I have done this before and it’s worked!  
• Mentoring on improvisation, songwriting, composing, arranging, saxophone, clarinet and /or general creative chats
• An online ‘making of Invisible Real’ session where I break down how I created it and what I learned along the way
• Handwritten lyric/doodle sheets, each one will be a unique combination of lyrics from the album. 

I'll be sharing some behind the scenes song explanations and raw improvisations of songs from my practice space on my social media in the next few weeks too. 

THANK YOU!! 

I do believe this is some of my best work yet and and I’d love to be able to share it with you. Thanks so much for reading, and especially if you’re someone who has submitted your experiences to Invisible Real, a heartfelt thanks to you, you’ve inspired me a lot. Big thank you to Daniel Clifford from Amateur Ornithologist for supporting me to make this Crowdfunder, Wes Stephenson from New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings and everyone who has told me that this mad idea is gonna come off.

Faye x x  

Photo by Victoria Wai.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made