Thoughts, ideas, essays, updates and periodic livestreams while I work.
Thoughts, ideas, essays, updates and periodic livestreams while I work.
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Forgotten Fields contemplates fleeting images of rural beauty in melody and verse. The natural world fills me with wonder—the song of the swallow as it dances in the air; the sigh of the wind as it sweeps through the grass! I am a musician and poet from the Western Cape of South Africa. I compose idylls in music and poetry. At the moment, I am working on a collection of traditional poems inspired by my rural surroundings, the development of which I previously documented on my blog and now here. My most recent experimental music release on a similar theme can be heard here. I have a protracted artist cycle—that is, there are long periods between releases—but I devote myself wholly to my task. Thank you for considering my work.
I am currently not posting to this page. All paid tier content is now on my blog.
Thank you for your interest in my work,
Forgotten Fields
As I reflect upon my social media experience and "debrief" following my departure—especially from Twitter, a platform I enjoyed in spite of its ultimate ineffectiveness—I recall how sad it was to watch parts of the independent music community devolve into the playlist-pushing parade. Instead of artists discussing their work—providing insight into their artistic philosophy and life—timelines were devoted to this new method of promotion. Whilst I appreciate its value—and perhaps I avoid it at my peril—it became clear to me that it is destroying independent music from the inside, favouring quantity over quality.
One of the greatest joys in life is to be engrossed in a task so captivating that all the other demands of life seem to vanish about you. Writing poetry is such a task to me.
My departure from social media has lifted from me a burden; a pressure (wholly self-imposed) ever to be abreast of the world—artistic or otherwise. I sigh with a sense of relief.
What I enjoy about autumn, I think, is the inevitability of winter. It lends to the season a sense of melancholy. Although the South African spring is in its temperament the same—an ever-changing impromptu of sun and cloud—the impending severity of summer makes it somehow less endearing.
It is now autumn in South Africa. There is to me no better season. Indeed, one of the earliest poems I composed—named after the season—was inspired by its simple beauty.