It's been a crazy month!

Renovations to half of our house are coming to a conclusion, and my family and I have been cleaning, moving furniture, hanging pictures, and making final aesthetic together decisions with our signature playful intensity. The piano has been displaced since February, huddled among other refugee furnishings, and two weeks ago was finally moved back to its home in the lounge room, which is unrecognisable from its previous incarnation, ageing and unaltered as it was for a century.

I've been recovering from a brief flash of tenosynovitis that put my right hand out for a month; track 2 was my first recording with that hand since then, and so this volume has documented my reacquaintance with the piano as a two handed instrument. After substituting my right hand for my voice last month, I'm now trying to integrate singing into these improvisations, and thus triangulate my musical statement through these three expressive tools. This is a totally new way of making music for me, and it hasn't been without its uncertain and awkward moments (read: pitching!). Some of those are documented here.

Also this month I've been massaging my honours thesis into a submittable form, which has put my head very much in the land of theory, concept and language. Every couple of days I emerge and do something fun and unrelated, and all the time spent behind my laptop manipulating sentence structures (and learning that I don't know the precise meaning of a lot of the words I was inclined to use) has made these experiences extra charged! I went to a festival called Kwingy (from which the cover photo is taken) with a bunch of old and new friends and saw some incredible music--the likes of which I had never even conceived of existing--and had an absolutely beautiful and life-affirming night. I also saw these new friends in a play called 'The Market Is A Wind-Up Toy' that had me in fits of laughter one minute and soberly questioning my reality the next, and left me deeply inspired by the full-bodied engagement and abandon of these astounding actors.

This is often a particularly intense time of year, no? Everything is busier, brighter, looser around the edges, and hurtling towards that vortex of change when we add a number to our calendars and start over again, renewed and excited. For now, I've got to get back to that thesis (it's due on Monday) and keep pace with the hectic month ahead. Wishing you all the best!