I’m proud and honoured to be part of One More Tune, a celebration of and fundraiser for the legendary JD Twitch, aka Keith McIvor, of Optimo/Espacio. It’s a 41-track compilation album spanning all kinds of genres and featuring artists big and small, and all proceeds are going to JD’s healthcare and to his favourite good causes. JD has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour and musicians and music fans have already rallied round to help. The crowdfunder to help with his immediate care smashed its target in hours.

We’ve contributed an unreleased song, Don’t Know How To Human, and I wrote a little bit for the accompanying booklet about interviewing Keith for Small Town Joy, in which he played a really important part. Here’s a taster:

I don’t consider myself a pushy parent; I’m quite keen on finding out who my kids are rather than telling them who I expect them to be. But I think we all have ambitions for our kids, such as wanting them to be happy, and kind to others, and kind to themselves – and if they can also share some of our taste in music and books and comedy, that’s a bonus. So for example I love that both of my kids love The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and R.E.M., and the same sort of stupid humour that cracks me up too.

I was also really pleased that both of my kids are interested in making music as well as listening to it. And that lasted right up until they started making music noisily and frequently in my house: guitar for my eldest and drums for my youngest. They’re getting very good, but it’s loud – and it’s loud in a house that’s usually silent, because I can’t work when there’s music playing or speech radio in the background.

The noise is karma, cosmic payback for all the years I spent making a bleeding racket in my own family’s home, a racket so bad that I could make my mum wince three decades later by referencing one of the songs. I think mum would find that funny.

Despite public demand, our new EP is available now on Bandcamp (for free, or name your price) and will be coming to streaming next week. I’m very proud of it.

The EP is called The Nest That You Have Flown. The title track is probably the most straightforwardly rock song here, a blast of guitars and driving bass, and it’s followed by a firm live favourite: Opera, the song I can never remember the lyrics to because of some bizarre mental block. David’s guitar is particularly great on this one.

Next up is Closer To The End Than The Beginning, a song about cowardly corporations abandoning their public support for LGBTQ+ folks in which you can really hear my love of Talk Talk’s records (and which we debuted live last year; the cowardice has become even worse in 2025), and last but not least there’s the shimmering guitar pop of Red Carpet Blue.

More music soon.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing this year and that hasn’t left a lot of time for music – or at least, for actually finishing music; I’ve been writing tons of songs that I’m going to hunker down, mix and release very shortly. Here’s a new tune that you can have for free. It’s more pop-y than the other songs we’re working on, I think: big anthemic guitar pop with a typically cheery lyric and one of our trademark huge choruses.