'I completed a new large-scale electroacoustic composition, working title Apokatastasis, a theological term which sees the whole of creation restored to a condition of perfection. Now wouldn't that be nice! It needs a companion piece for a CD so I'm currently making some close microphone recordings with different materials lying around the garage. I recently purchased a matched stereo pair of Soyuz  microphones. They are wonderful and I'd recommend them if you want to invest.

I released a new album over on Bandcamp. 'Gift' is a series of improvisation for classical guitar. On different electric and acoustic guitars I'm building up new pieces. These will be separate albums for 2026. I've given up composing pieces in whatever style or idiom and then playing them accurately. I naturally gravitate towards improvising in and around different kinds of scaffolding so playing and recording is a matter of resolving extremes - things either take time and patience or happen quickly and without much forethought. Besides I've always thought that the whole point is to sound like yourself so that's what I'm aiming for.

At the moment I'm involved in a group exhibition showing at Hawick museum from 1 March 2026. I'll be exhibiting triptych of photographic prints called Passio. These are modified using digital paint and selected overlays taken from medieval and early 20th century paintings. To be honest I don't know what to make of these prints. This is unknown territory for me. The subject  of these works, if there is to be a main topic, is the ugly devastation of the Borders landscape left in the wake of sitka tree felling. I wasn't satisfied with a triptych of sad pictures showing broken landscapes. There had to be some way out, some kind of redemption so I had to think long and hard about things and find an angle on responding to changes in the rural environment without preaching. I've written some blog articles about how I arrived at the final works. You can read them 'here'. The four articles for some reason appear in reverse order so you'll have to scroll down and work upwards from Passio 1.