This music is packed with profoundly positive beats carrying an array of pianos, acoustic guitars and layered vocals; it's full of dynamic crescendos leading to cliff-drop silences, with honest accessible lyrics sung with heart and soul.

11 MP3 Songs
POP: Folky Pop, POP: Piano



Details:
I hope you can take a few minutes to have a listen to the clips of my record. I have arranged the order of the songs carefully, but this does not necessarily mean that the "best" stuff is at the beginning. The easy stuff is at the beginning. That's why the first track is like a nursery rhyme, jaunty and breezy.

I wanted the record to be like a person, so you get to know them gradually. Usually when we first meet someone, we get the nice easy outer bit before we get to know them and are introduced to some of the more truthful, darker elements, as exist in all of us. By darker elements, I mean true hopes, fears, desires, stuff like that.

In spite of this idea, even some of the light-hearted songs have undercurrents that seek to undermine the light-hearted feel at times, like hints people might give us as to their real intentions or feelings. That's why it's titled as it is. The "Heartbreak Rocks" are in the sack and are therefore hidden from view. But they bulge and stretch the cloth of the sack so it is obvious that they are there.

As well as reflecting the human personality, I also wanted the songs to take the listener on a kind of journey, so, following on from a gentle introduction the music is heavier and more intense in the middle of the record, and gets more reflective towards the end.

Some of the songs are chosen because they are instant and catchy, others for their depth and complexity. Songs that you have to work at a tiny bit before you enjoy them, often seem to end up being the songs that you love the most. Conversely, the instant songs can end up being the ones that you get bored of more quickly. Hopefully there is a balance between the two on this record. Easy access, but with depth to maintain interest.

I just want to say a bit about this record and how it came about. I have been writing and recording stuff for a long time, mostly using dodgy equipment. The results were ok, but I found that I couldn't create the sounds that were in my imagination as well as I would have liked.

So in November '03, I resolved to try and make the best album that I could possibly make. Maybe even a "great" album. I believe you have to approach projects with a kind of reckless optimism as this is what produces the energy and motivation to get things done.

/more to follow...