I use my voice, sometimes extended through audio processing, to share songs, standards, prose and improvised ideas.I also write and talk about music.

The idiosyncratic coupling of song and free improvisation that characterizes my practice was formed early on in my journey, as a teen, during weekly sessions modeled on Mingus'Jazz Workshop that took place at the Betsy Trotwood. In this environment, my love for the lyric was able was sit quite comfortably alongside a compulsion toward demonic abrasion. I loved the quiet predictability of ballad, as much as the hazard and caprice of the coming together and falling apart of extemporized form, and this uneasy marriage continues to orient my music-making.

I am currently working on a word-driven sound project under the title “Lullabies for those who should have come of age in the nineties,” the seeds of which were sowed a few years ago in a piece I wrote to mark the reissue of Marina Rosenfeld’s “theforestthegardenthesea.” Since then I’ve been trying to capture, by way of sound, something of the peculiarity of coming into adulthood at the turn into the new century; trying to glimpse something of the acute social and political awareness cut by inexplicable inaction, that characterizes the generation. 

I’ve also been fascinated by how Chris Ofili’s work, particularly his recent collection Seven Deadly Sins, and his Poolside Magic from the 2010s, even (and especially) when seeming to take us to other times and other places (and often to the limits of time and place), provides a portal to the 90s London nightlife (Heaven, Whirl-Y-Gig, the Blue Note, Vortex, the 100 Club) and the screeching feedback of emotions that went on there. 

This has been an inspiration for the industrial junkyard of the fairy tale I’m attempting to share through the music. Extending an interest in audio processing that began during my time as part of the duo,The Man Who Laughs, this new project involved the ceaseless reconstitution of an interface for improvisation and other sorts of storytelling, facilitated by Max MSP and Ableton Live. This new project is performed both solo, and with long-time collaborator, cellist, Ben Davis.

In 2016 I began a two year tenure as Black Art Fellow at Northwestern University, the highlight of which was a performance of a suite of music for improvising musicians I put together entitled Record Rituals, with Davis, Greg Ward, Olie Brice and Sebastian Rochford at the 2018 Black Arts Festival. This transatlantic ensemble helped me bring to life a body of work that developed from the indispensable remainders of the more academic research I was engaged in. 

Prior to this, I performed on the London jazz scene, toured the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond in various projects and ensembles, both song-driven and improvised. I’ve had the chance to collaborate with, among others, Pat Thomas, Stuart Hall, Olie Brice, Seb Rochford, Greg Ward, Stefano Kalonaris, Cleveland Watkiss, Orphy Robinson, Ben Davis, Emily Saunders, Noel Taylor, Trevor Watkis, Andrea Caputo, Idris Rahman, Roy Dodds, and Zac Gvi.

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