It is one of the joys of my life that: people who connect with my music and art sometimes make things inspired by them and send them to me.

These things come in all shapes and sizes.  Paintings, novellas, choreographed dance works, jewellery, poetry, video, trippy audio files… you name it.

I find them all pretty damn cool – how could I not?  But I’ve never posted any of them online.

Until today.

Early this morning, along with my coffee, I fired up Twitter and found this waiting for me:

(The text reads: “She asked: where is the love? They replied: ‘Love is in the river.'”)

I love it. I think it is a certain kind of perfect.

It was made by a young French-Algerian lady named, Kenza Chikh (@KenzaChikh on Twitter) who included a note with it saying: she had been inspired by my track ‘River’ and had sketched this while listening.  She also apologised for the quality, as she had no power last night and had sketched it by candlelight.

Which made it even more beautiful.

It totally captured my imagination so I wanted to share it with y’all as soon as I could (which is why I am hammering out this blog before heading back into the studio.)

And, just in case you’re new to the party, here is the track that it was inspired by:

‘River’ is a track from my first album ‘I’ which I recorded on a battered laptop in a room during a year of solid work (mostly after midnight).  The album was an experiment and a massive learning curve for me – beautiful and painful in equal degree – because I had set myself the task of doing absolutely everything (writing, playing, engineering, mastering, production etc) on my own.

In terms of audio quality it is not great at all.  But the pieces are honest, the arrangements are beautiful and organic, and I can still listen to it – which makes it a success in my book. (Plus it’s how I: built my chops, found my initial audience, and started making a real living thru art, so how could I not love it). 😉

Let me know what you think of this post.  If enough people like it then I may start posting more of the fan-art I get sent.

Big love, big hug, have a good one.

J

(P.S. Oh, The new record is coming along very well 😉 )

#Soon