Karuna Bhavan temple, Lesmahagow, Scotland
I've joined a group of pilgrims walking from London to Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit. Yesterday we had a short walk from Douglas to Lesmahagow. We stayed in the Karuna Bhavan temple. The devotees have kindly let us stay here on their little eco-farm, thanks to several members of our group visiting them yesterday to ask them nicely. Previously, we've stayed in churches, community halls, and even a Days Inn at a motorway service station.

I first met the pilgrims on the 5th of September in a church in Kilburn, North London, on their first stop (I already knew two of them who were my coursemates Tom and Jelena, which is how I got involved with this). I played a show for them, accompanied by my last-minute band, Kerttu Sorumen (vocals), Michael Ekeghasi (vocals, cajon), Lewis Stagg (accordion) and Liam Lenohan (keys). It was a lovely show.

I next met them in Leek, Staffordshire, on September the 26th. My courseamtes and I, lead by Jelena, had arranged an event this weekend in Leek to coincide with the walkers passing through the town. I stayed with them for their rest day on the 27th, and played an evening show for them in the church where we were sleeping (I slept right up front near the altar). On Tuesday the 28th I walked with the pilgrims from Leek to Macclesfield. It was quite rainy. That evening I went to stay on Mathew & Kim's alpaca farm, and then I went back to my new houseshare in Machynlleth (I moved to Mach, I'll write about that in another post).

I rejoined the walk at Gretna on the 16th of October. I took the train up from London. I'm walking with them to Glasgow.

(We couldn't find a place to stay for this leg, so we shuttled back to Moffat)

(Epic photos day)

We couldn't find a place to stay in Douglas, so most of us a were shuttled back to the Days Inn. A few lucky ones including me with less money (the youth group) got to stay with some other Caministas in their Air BnB. We traveled there in electric vehicles, and back to Douglas in the morning.

25/10/21 Karuna Bhavan Temple
Last night, one of the devotees told us about their beliefs and what they think about climate change - in summary, he said that the Krishna Consciousness Society believe that the sustainable solution is to transform our inner selves and overcome greed (over consumption of resources), which he said is the root cause of the climate & biodiveristy crisis we are in. He says that we cannot find material solutions for material problems. My mother would agree; she would like us to live simpler lives, traval less, spend more time in nature, become regionally self-sufficient in food.

I can see many parallels in what he said with what we are learning at the Centre for Alternative Technology, where one of the areas of study is Behaviour Change. i.e. technological advancement alone cannot save humanity, we also need to reconnect with nature and evolve away from energy-intensive material consumerism - hence the slogan "system change not climate change". So many human-made systems on our planet, especially in the "developed countries", rely on energy-dense fossil fuels providing giga-joules of on-demmand chemical energy. Renewable electricity will provide less energy overall (as explained by David MacKay back in 2008), and will increase demmand for rare-earth minerals, much of which are currently extracted by low-paid workers in environmentally destructive ways. Nuclear power could enable us to maintain the high-energy lifestyles which some people are used to and others desire, but also comes with its own set of problems and challenges which have yet to be ironed out. Basically, in the future scenarios where we don't wipe ourselves out (along with many other species who were just minding their own business), we will have to reduce our consumption of energy & resources and share what we have more fairly. This does not mean "going back to the stone age", because we do have plenty of genius material/technological solutions out there which make our lives better!

We are raising money to support environmental activists in the Global South. Visit caminotocop.com to donate.

Thanks for reading.

Recently, my art-college friend, Charles, invited me to be Ed's co-host on the monthly experimental electronic music show, Oscilloscope, that they run along with their friend, Rob.
The last time I saw Ed was in November 2018 when we performed a concert together in Blue Sky Cafe in Bangor (with Roger Hughes, Ben and Eve Goodman).
It was a great pleasure to meet experimental audio visual artists Mark Albrow (https://markalbrow.bandcamp.com), Gary Lee Nelson, Erik Nystrom and Dafydd Roberts (Listen To The Voice Of Fire). I had a lot of fun. Check it out:

It was gonna be a big one, it was gonna be the BEST ONE EVER.... but, we had to postpone it because of a certain virus...(see song below)

Click here for videos of the concert! (YouTube playlist)

There's an old winter tradition in parts of Wales whereby a horses skull on stick is taken door to door and her bearers demand entry through the medium of song. My brother and I wrote a song about that.
Wnaethom ni ffilmio a recordio'r gan wreiddiol hon mewn hen stabl yr ardd, adref ym Metws-y-Coed. Gynhyrchwyd y fideo gan ein chwaer bach, Ciara.

Nadolig llawen a blwyddyn newydd dda!

This time last year I was busy preparing a New Year's Eve extravaganza for my set at Folk Marathon Ghent, to celebrate the dawn of a new glorious decade in which we move towards a renewable-energy based circular econonmy; a world where the people of all nations, ethnic & economic backgrounds, geneders and sexual orientations are valued and respected equally.

Friday the 23rd of October, Ghent: the night curfew was already in full swing and a second lockdown loomed on the horizon. I was due to take my train back to North Wales, and two weeks of self-isolation, in two days time.
But before I left, we transformed the Robinialand living room into a socially-distanced home studio and recorded this song:

The co-writer, Hannelore, was sad that she couldn't be there for the recording session, but she was able to join us virtually, in post-production, through the fibre-optic cables from Estonia (as you can see from the sketch).

The song was written on a Sunday in Brussels. It was the 15th March, 2020 and Belgium had just gone into lockdown. I was due to take a bus back to London that evening, and Hannelore would fly back to Estonia the following morning. But we didn't really want to leave, and we didn't know when we would all see each other again. She especially was making a fuss about this, and I, sat at the piano, started making up a mock-tragic song about it. Judging from the voice notes on my phone, this must have been at about 11.40am. A few hours later, we'd finished the song and filmed a little video.

I returned to Belgium in September to perform at BOM festival in Bij De Vieze Gasten, Ghent, where we gave this song its first (and so far, last) Belgian public appearance.
I ended up staying in Ghent for a month with my bandmates in their shared house, delaying the inevitable two weeks of mandatory self-isolation which I would undergo on my return to the UK. A friend suggested I record See You After Quarantine which she remembered from our performance at the festival. I'm very glad she made that suggestion! This one goes out to her.

New single, recorded just under 4 weeks ago in Ghent, a few days before I headed home to Wales for my two weeks of self-isolation. The song was written in Brussels back in March, weekend that Belgium entered the first lockdown.

Here's the original live video of the song, featuring co-songwriter Hannelore Karmel.

It's become a tradition to write my hitsongs in Belgium, in March, in collaboration...(see Goldfish)

Be sure to keep your eye on my Instagram for updates! (i.e. the next trailer) I usually post them here first.

I started making this in May during the first lockdown, after I was invited to perform in the Treehouse Festival online edition. I invited last year's spontaneous Treehouse Festival band (a comination of London's Erni & Luke, and Newcastle's A Horse Named Gringo) to make a lockdown video with me.
I didn't manage to finish the video it in time for the gig, but the audio was ready, so I used that.