A Winter's Tale
The third album, released in 2006. At this point I was going through my "Practice all the time" phase, and I was starting to build some technical skills and dig a bit deeper into the tunings.
The result is the most "guitar-centric" album I've done. When I listen to it now I'm thankful that I make life easier for myself these days! Playing some of these tunes live proved quite a challenge to say the least.
There are some delicate moments on the album which I really treasure. Particularly the tune "Early Hours" is a favourite of mine. The album was recorded after my first visit to Canada, where snow was to become increasingly relevant in my life.
It would be another 9 years before the next album was ready. In the following years I went a little too far down the technical route and also began to feel unsure about where I was going with it. The music business changed and fingerstyle guitar suddenly seemed irrelevant to the world. Maybe it still is, but combined with declining CD sales in the business, and a lack of interest for live performance, things drifted for a long time.
Around about 2011 I started playing just for my own interest pretty much, and found myself writing again. It seemed like I was heading back towards the earlier albums again, except this time my own sound was emerging. The result is the next album, Shallow Sea,