In 2007 after I returned from The Voyage of Storm Petrel, it took a few years to get back into British life. I'd been far away on the voyage and seen many beautiful places, I was changed by the time and distance, my life was salt cracked,I had no job and no money. My approach was to absorb myself in the place I settled on as my new home, Woodbridge, Suffolk and walking along the River Deben with Loba, my cairn terrier, was a daily routine which gave me time and space to reflect and appreciate being 'home', to be British again.
Music and video became my focus, my way of expressing the melancholy of having finished one big journey and starting a new one - the tricky journey known as 'settling down'.
Several times during the voyage I had written in my daily log book, 'When I get back home I want to concentrate on playing the saxophone and become a much better musician.' Nowadays I feel I have advanced in leaps and bounds compared to five years ago and yet the music I was playing and creating then was, nevertheless, full of feeling and brimful of mood.
Here is a piece I recorded in 2007 and the video to go with it, I'd realised there was no such thing as home, that 'home' is created from the friends you meet and the experiences you create together. In 2007 I had neither, only the river path, a dog to share it with, a saxophone and a video camera.
Techno live from a suitcase of analogue synths.