The question came from a man in another bed just across the oncology ward. My Dad, in his own bed, replied:

“Yes, I do.”

“So you’re a believer then?”

“I am, yes”

I think the answer came as something of a surprise to the man. Over the days that he and my Dad had been in the same hospital ward, they had formed some connection over football, books, talking about the places they grew up. But now, in the quiet of the room, with the sound of beeping machines, the deeper questions came.

“I just don’t know if I could believe in something like that, after everything the church has done. I’d like to believe there’s something more, but when I think about all the terrible things in history that Christians did…”

“That’s true” my Dad responded. “But there’s only ever been one perfect man.”

A short pause and a noise of agreement from the other bed.

“Just talk to the man from Nazareth”.

When I think back on that conversation, I’m struck by how simple my Dad’s response was to the man’s comments. My Dad was a pastor, he spent many years of his life reading, studying scripture, preaching at the local church - I’m sure he could have thought of 100 things to say in that moment, explained the full message of the gospel, but it really came down to “just talk to Jesus”.

Some days, I relate more to the man in the other bed - full of doubts, fears, questions - hurt by people who claimed to be following Jesus. Watching scandal after scandal, moral failure after moral failure happening in the church, feeling disappointment after disappointment from people who performed holiness and called others to a standard they weren’t even keeping. I look through history at the atrocities done in the name of Christianity that I think we’re still feeling the effects of, and even today I feel increasingly unable to relate to the kind of messaging I see from other believers endorsing people and ideas that seem a thousand miles from the sermon on the mount, and the Jesus that I see in the pages of the Bible.

It saddens me that so many friends are falling out of church communities hurt, depressed and excluded. It saddens me that non-Christian friends feel like they’re not “good enough people” to go to church. It saddens me that when I invited my gay friend to come to my concert in a church he asked me “will I be safe there?”. It saddens me that sometimes I hesitate to mention I’m a Christian to people I meet, not because I’m ashamed of following Jesus but because I feel like I’ll be automatically assigned pre-conceived ideas of what that means, based on how the church have been presenting themselves. Sometimes I wonder if his heart is breaking for the way his name is being represented today. I know this can sound very self-righteous, and I know I’m just as broken as anyone, but I suppose I’m a little burnt out from the people who pretend they’re not. The ones who seem to make grand boasts and claims like they’ve got it all figured out and know better than anyone else, rather than opening their heart to show that we’re all walking wounded and looking for a saviour. We’re all just in need of some grace, some love and some hope.

I could go on and on but I don’t feel like that’s the point of what I’m trying to say here. My Dad isn’t around to talk about these things to anymore, but if he was, I imagine I would get a pretty similar response: “talk to the man from Nazareth”.

Because in the middle of all this noise and confusion and hurt is this man whose words feel like the purest water. In a culture that feels like a scramble to the top and a race to build your own platform, I see a man who came for the last, the least and the lost. When I open up that book I read about a man who flipped the tables of the religious, hung out with everyone that was shunned and rejected by society, drew doodles in the sand while people waited for him to judge and condemn, called out hypocrisy, and lived a life of pure, self-sacrificial love and compassion.

Some days trying to navigate the cultural landscape and all the nuances of church and community feels like a mammoth task, increasingly I’m find my answer to be “I don’t know” - but I do know that this is a man I want to follow. Regardless of anything else, I don’t know a better example to live by. I don’t know a better person to look up to and to try to be like. He’s so kind, gracious, gentle and yet fiercely passionate and strong too. His heaviest words were for the gatekeepers, and anyone who would stand in the way of someone coming to God with what they have. The message was clear: it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done - the door is wide open, the table is prepared, and anyone who wants to come has a seat. I don’t think I know anyone else who loves on that level.

Still, I kept wrestling with the fact that I can’t just be on my own little journey - it’s easy to say we love Jesus but don’t like the church. But the trouble is, Jesus loves the church. It’s his plan and his design. His bride. And it’s pretty hard to follow him and not catch some of his heart for the church too. Yet, I still struggled to find an expression that didn’t just bring up all the same old feelings. That was until I went to Berlin.

A couple of friends invited me out there to share at a creative conference but also just to extend my stay and spend time together. We had a great time exploring their city, trying amazing coffee, checking out beautiful stores and strolling along the river in the sun. We had deep chats across the dinner table and shared stories. Then, on a Monday night, they opened their house for friends to come to their living room, and with cups of tea in hand and biscuits on the table, we spoke to Jesus. We sang songs, we prayed out loud, we had moments of quiet - and in a way I felt like I was getting a little glimpse of what it meant to be the church.

If the simplest version of my own faith journey is talking to Jesus, then this felt like the simplest version of a faith community - we talk to him together. There was no room for ego, or performance or spiritual showmanship in this living room, but I got to hear people speak to Jesus, and I got a glimpse of what he’s been speaking to them too. That’s when I finally started to understand the verses like:

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another…”
Hebrews 10:24-25

and

“…be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts.”
Ephesians 5:18-19

The whole experience was surprisingly very healing, and just continued to spark my thirst and desire to find the real thing. I’ve always been one to crave authenticity, and to try and find the genuine and reject the superficial. Just this evening I was thinking back to a song I wrote 8 years ago called “Something Real”, and I think it’s been a song that I still hold on to as one of the deep desires of my heart.

Lyrics:

Lead me out into the open space
Let me hear Your voice and see Your face
Sometimes life is found in moving slow
It’s in these valleys where the flowers grow

So take me to the place where mercy never ends
I don't want success, I want to be Your friend

I'm done with impersonation, imitation
I want something real

So to everyone out there with questions like me, I hope you find some time to talk to him. The only one who was ever perfect. I hope you find living rooms and tables full of people who are trying to do the same, and I hope you know you have a seat.

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“You look happier”. I glanced down at my cup, swirling the coffee around in a gentle circle as my mind flashed back through past few years of my life. “Yeah, I think I am” I replied.

I heard the same phrase multiple times on my brief visit to Los Angeles. I returned for a song-writing camp, one I’ve had the privilege of participating in three times now. Each time I try and stay a little longer, to catch up with friends in the area. I feel like there’s a certain perspective people get when they see you just once every 6 months or so. Unlike the friends who see all the little steps of my journey, these friends see the bigger strides from afar.

And almost everyone I had the chance to spend more time with told me I seemed happier, lighter, more at-ease. I felt it in myself too, and I knew it came from more than just the much-needed Vitamin D of California sunshine, after long cold winter months in the UK… Even after returning home to my friends and family, it was nice to hear the same thing from them, “you seem happy”.

There were days I thought I’d never feel that way. The last few years have honestly been the craziest journey of my life, marked by grief, loss, doubt (someday I’ll share the full story). At my lowest moments it seemed this would just be a downward slope with no light at the end of the tunnel.

I’ve written about some of that here on my page. I processed through conversations, through journaling, therapy, poetry and songwriting. Music has always been my main way of expressing the language of my heart and emotions - so I wrote, and wrote and wrote.

The songs that came out were some of the most vulnerable and painfully honest I’d written, and I just kept them building up on my hard-drive, some of them are still there and I may not ever share them. The rest became an album I released in September called “NIGHT”.

That album really took a lot out of me, emotionally and physically. It’s the only time I’ve ever cried after finishing the final mix and sending a project to mastering. It just meant so much to me. Although it was difficult to make, I felt that I had fittingly honoured my feelings and the people I had loved and lost. For somebody who grew up learning to stuff my feelings deep down and not give them much time of day, it was a cathartic and healing experience.

I called the album “NIGHT” because of a description of the night that I read in John O’Donaghue’s book “Anam Cara” - he described the night time as a healing time, when we come home, we rest, we close the door to the outside and shelter ourselves in hiddenness. It encapsulated my experience when I wanted to disappear from the world and when, quite frankly, it became necessary to face and address the things within myself that I had long tried to avoid.

I know the album was not the kind of project that would have mass appeal and be everyone’s favourite of mine, but it was for the people who needed it. For those going through their own grief or pain, it was a bridge, an embrace.

What I didn’t share at the time was that I was also making a second album, called “DAY”. Originally I had planned to release both of them just a week apart, a surprise drop with even more songs to digest (a sort of contemplative cousin of Justin Bieber’s SWAG and SWAG 2, if you will). But as I started to put the songs into different folders and figure out the release strategy, I realised that I needed to give this second album some more time.

Truthfully, I didn’t even feel like I wanted to release a “DAY” album while I was feeling the way I was. “Who am I kidding?” I thought to myself, trying to make this happy, upbeat while trying to get through depression. I felt that I was almost prophetically making the album. I was writing songs that one day I want to sing, even if I can’t sing them right now.

Every now and then the line from Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem, famously sampled in the song “Praise God”, would come to mind:

And I just had to hold on to the hope that I won’t always feel the way I’m feeling in this moment. Grief is really hard, and really intense, but it does pass. I’ve been through it before and I know that, while a part of you is irreversibly changed and marked by the experience, the intensity of it does subside with time.

I had to keep believing that, just like the rhythm of our natural world, night will always give way to day. And sure enough, it did.

I think touring the NIGHT album was the experience that helped me start to glimpse the light creeping up over the horizon. I remember finishing the production of NIGHT and thinking “well, the album is done, but my grief isn’t”. I didn’t know if I would be able to move on from it. But being able to share the songs in person, in small intimate rooms with other humans, helped to broaden my horizons. I’d spent a lot of time on the internal world, I’d done a lot of processing, a lot of figuring out, a lot of introspection. That was good, it was necessary, I was able to pin-point and uproot some really negative things that never belonged there, but that process wasn’t meant to last forever. At the end of these concerts I found myself meeting people who shared their own stories with me, their own losses. I’m still so moved thinking about the people I met and the experiences they were kind of enough to share with me. I felt my heart go out to these people and their pain.

I had long conversations on car rides with my friends and heard their experiences of going through similar things and I felt the small, quiet invitation to step out of the internal world and into the outside world where I began to realise I’m not as alone as I had first thought.

I had put this pressure on the idea of facing the day to be the moment I have all the answers, that all my struggles are gone, that I’m not feeling grief anymore. But that’s not what the day is about. It’s about realising that there comes a time to step out again and look beyond yourself and your circumstances. It’s about trying your best just to keep going and realise you were never meant to do this alone.

To be honest with you, I don’t have the answers I was looking for in my introspective era. I just knew it was time to make peace with the fact that I’m still allowed to keep moving regardless, and that sometimes healing means taking one step at a time in the direction you want to be going.

I met a friend, who also happens to a pastor, for coffee several months ago. I was in the middle of my spiralling thoughts and my worldview falling to pieces around me. After a friendly catch up and some light banter, my inner monologue spilled out and I made a sudden pivot into the existential. “Is God really good?” I asked. “It just seems like everyone I know that’s trying to follow him is having a really hard time. Nobody seems happy. It seems like they all talk about being ‘tested’ by God or that he’s challenging them to do all of these difficult things and make huge sacrifices, meanwhile my non-Christian friends are living a simple life and seem to be doing just fine. What’s that about?”

She probed a little deeper, reminding me that she is actually enjoying her life in God, and so are many others, and that I have just been through a uniquely intense period of life which might be warping my perspective just a little, and that life can’t be all that bad given that we’re sitting in a really beautifully designed coffee shop sipping £5 matcha lattes. As I started to rant about suffering and how God seems to remain silent, and all the stories through the Old Testament where God just seemed cruel and unkind, and on and on… she asked me “have you read Psalm 73”?

I was pretty familiar with the psalms but I couldn’t recall that one in the moment. I opened up my Bible app and started to give it a quick read through. Have you ever had that moment where you realise you’ve never had an original thought? Yeah. That’s what happened.

“Truly God is good to Israel, to those whose hearts are pure.” it started.

“Sure.” I thought. “I tried for years to keep my heart pure and look where I am now…”

“But as for me, I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.” it continues in verse 2.

“Ok yep. Same same. I was so ready to call it quits just a few weeks ago. I guess my feet have been slipping for a while.”

“For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness. They seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong. They don’t have troubles like other people; they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else.”

“Yes, exactly!” I began to realise I was relating a little too much to this psalm. I thought about all the random guys I see on TikTok and Threads posting their photo dumps showing off their amazing outfits, their beautiful home, their abs, their relationship, their peaceful life, while I lay in bed battling depressive thoughts and wondering if everything I’d believed was even real.

“Look at these people, enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.”

I nodded. Yeah! Exactly!

“Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason? I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain.”

Ok, wait. Now I feel like Asaph is reading my journal. I literally had that thought moments ago. I realised it was maybe the root of the feelings I’d been having. I always thought of myself as the good church kid, the pastor’s kid. I kept myself out of trouble. I did all the right things. I said the right things, I performed as best as I could. But look where it led me and look how I’m feeling now, dealing with so much shame and self-rejection while people seem to be living with such ease all around me in this city, with no concern for whether they’re doing what’s “right”.

“But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task”

You can say that again, Asaph. This was exactly how I felt. Years of ‘processing’, of ‘figuring it out’. I remember telling friends “I just need to understand WHY, and then I can move forward”. I was desperate for answers and it was tiring me out, physically, mentally and spiritually. Then came the psalm’s turning point.

“Until I went into the sanctuary of God…”

The great ‘until’. I was relating with everything in the psalm so far, but I didn’t have my ‘until’ moment yet. You mean the wrestling stops somewhere? There’s an end to these feelings and this kind of existential spiralling? And interestingly enough, Asaph’s “until” moment didn’t come because of an intellectual epiphany or sudden understanding of life and all its meaning. It was simply a change of posture and position. He went to the sanctuary of God. He went to worship. He chose to turn to God anyway, despite all those questions and doubts and fears. And it was there that God showed him the eternal picture, that wickedness leads nowhere good, that the narrow path leads to glory. How patient God is to keep bearing with me even in my bitterness and my tantrums, I thought. And then I read it further on in the psalm…

“Then I realized that my heart was bitter, and I was all torn up inside. I was so foolish and ignorant— I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you. Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.”

Yet I still belong to you. After all of this? All my anger and bitterness and desire to run away and my constant complaining, God still sees me as his own? He still holds my hand through it?

I really thought I was struggling with something new and original. I thought my questions would maybe be something nobody had asked before or would strike my friend as something shocking or “un-Christian” of me… but then I find not only is it not a new idea, it’s in the BIBLE. My guy Asaph had the exact same questions thousands of years ago, and it even made it into scripture!

It was weirdly comforting, even though I’m an artist and I want to be unique. My feelings are things that people have felt before.

I read that psalm every day for a couple of weeks, I still bring it up to people regularly. Bit by bit, I started to feel like I was reaching an ‘until’ moment.

It really just came down to surrendering my need to understand everything, and that’s not easy or a small thing at all. After 4 - 5 years of deep, painful, internal process it’s not just going to be an over-night fix. But I just started to feel the sunrise of the day. The intensity of the night season was starting to fade, and I felt permission to simply step into it.

“I think you need a break from the intensity” my sister told me at one point. She was right. The night season was necessary, and it wasn’t all for nothing. I felt like I came from it having unpacked some negative ideas and beliefs that I had kept for too long, I don’t feel the shame and self-rejection I used to feel anymore. I don’t feel plagued by the same insecurities anymore. I think that is the lightness people see. I even have more understanding and appreciation for life and death, and the fragility of it all.

Even though there’s still so much that I don’t understand yet and that I’m still healing from,, I’m just trying to go to the sanctuary of God. I’ve put my questions on the shelf for a while because quite frankly I’m tired of asking them. I’m choosing just to sit with him, to ask for his grace and mercy every day. To keep walking forward, maybe limping along, but still moving.

That’s the kind of “DAY” that I’m ready for. The pressure came off when I realised the album didn’t need to be a "everything is great now” album, but simply about choosing to press forward anyway. Maybe it’s a resilience album. I finally felt ready for these songs, and even able to write new ones for the theme. And now that it’s time to share it, I feel like my own life season has aligned with what I’m creating again.

There’s a lot of variety on the album. There are songs of dependence, like “Again & Again” and “Circles”. There are moments of realising I need to look beyond myself “What If”. There are reflections on how far I’ve come already “Remember”. There are peaceful, resolute reflections on God’s character and work in my life “My Safe Place”, “Forever & Always”, “Reprise”. And there are songs about deciding to just keep going even when you don’t understand everything “Day By Day” / “Running”.

All of that to say, my second album “DAY” is going to be released March 27th! I’ll be sharing the next song from the album “What If” this Friday (Feb 20th). Recorded with my friends in Japan, and finished off at my home studio in Manchester. I’ve never been more proud of an album. I feel like it’s the kind of music I’ve wanted to make for years, and I don’t think it would be what it is without the “NIGHT” process that preceded it. I pray it becomes a soundtrack for those trying to keep moving forwards and learning to look up and look out, even in the craziness of life.

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Early rise, grey skies
And I get out of bed
Quick scroll on my phone
Now it’s filling my head
So loud, “buy it now!”
Wonder if I’m enough?
Will I ever find peace?
Will I ever find love?

Get a dog, get a job
Maybe I’ll …

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I’m tired of social media. I think we all might be. I don’t know any artist that really enjoys ‘self promotion’, it always seemed like a necessary evil. But lately, it feels like the platforms are demanding we take the generous, open-hearted intent of art and feed it through the same marketing tricks as a salesman. It feels icky.

For years, I vowed to post simply and honestly. I found my people: a little niche of souls looking for something a bit different, craving authenticity and courageous creativity. But the game has changed. We’ve moved from the Social Graph to the Interest Graph. Followers don’t mean anything now. Whereas social media used to be your little digital living room, where you could see posts from the people you followed and the things you decided you cared about, now the algorithm decides. And it measures each piece of content by how attention-grabbing it is, and how much it keeps people watching - keeps people on their platform. This is an intentional shift that has happened across nearly every social platform in the last few years.

And for the artists, we were taught to catch up and adapt. Entire accounts dedicated to learning how to crack the algorithm. Use these hashtags, open your video with a hook, start with the catchiest 5 second of your song, maybe even speed it up if it’s too slow? Create an attention grabbing visual.

It breaks my heart to see talented artists feel they have to smash instruments, tie themself to the back of a car, sing while drowning in water just to stop someone from scrolling away. Imagine telling Nina Simone to use more trending audios, or asking Leonard Cohen to start a dance challenge.

It only gets more absurd with the rise of AI, half of the music being shared now isn’t even real. There are even entire artist profiles and personas that are completely AI generated because somebody with a laptop realised it could be a quick way to make some extra money. Even artists’ real personas are being copied and utilised for whatever message people want to put out. Videos titled “Ed Sheeran Sing Worship to God” are full of comments saying “wow! Praise God!”. They don’t realise it isn’t real. But maybe the comments aren’t real either. Who knows anymore!

I recently got an ad for an AI tool showing that I can just paste a link to my new song and generate 20 short-form lyric videos in a few seconds! I used to spend weeks lovingly crafting a lyric video that I hoped people would enjoy coming back to for years. Now I can do it with a one-sentence prompt while I’m in bed. I can send out 3 videos a day in the hope of keeping your attention past the 3 second mark. To be honest, they don’t even look bad, and they will only keep getting better. It’s starting to feel like I’m sending handwritten letters while everyone else is sending emails. Am I just behind?

It just feels like there’s so much noise out there. And why should I add to it? Why do I need to play this game of ‘hooking’ my audience and ‘maximising retention’, like they’re some kind of number or metric and not a real person with an actual soul?

The more I see the absolutely absurd amounts of money being spent by the tech world, the more it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that we are running full-speed into a future that none of us actually want. And sure, some days I have a little energy left in me to play the game, to do what needs to be done, but my real hope is that I can keep creating art that does what art has always done: bring people together. To foster community and connection. To remind a hurting heart that they’re not alone. To call people higher, to stir souls into considering the realm of the beautiful and the transcendent.

Art matters and people matter, and I want to keep moving towards that.

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2025 was a great year for music. Sometimes I struggle to get 10 albums that I genuinely loved and end up scraping the barrel a bit, but this year I had to narrow it down from 23 albums. And I’ll start by giving a shoutout to Geese, Daniel Caesar, Lorde, FKA Twigs, Panda Bear, Saya Gray, Blood Orange and DjRUM for putting out incredible albums - some of which only didn’t make my list because I’ve still yet to dive into the albums enough to place them. But I decided to rank based on what I really spent the most time listening to and enjoying, so let’s go!

Disclaimer: these are all mainstream albums, if that’s not your thing, don’t listen lol

10. Men I Trust - Equus Asinus

Men I Trust dropped 2 albums this year, but I think this one was my favourite, just by an inch. The song Heavenly Flow grabbed me right away. An easy choice for when I want an album to put on for a drive, cleaning the apartment, or just setting a chill mood. They’ve really honed in their sound and they make some really fun musical choices on this record. It doesn’t really have any big, mind-blowing moments, but if you want a consistent vibe record, this one was hard to beat this year.

9. Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)

I’m not a woman, but I am melancholy, brunette and sad - so naturally, this hit. I’ve been a long-time fan of Japanese Breakfast and I feel like this is their best output. Such a big fan of Michelle’s writing, and this album was such a treat to keep returning to. Excellent writing throughout. I found myself returning to the first two songs especially and was drawn to her ability to create a song that drives and rolls along with such a strong rhythm despite the lack of drums!

8. Flyte - Between You And Me

Flyte was one of those bands I heard a couple of songs on playlists, decided to check out the rest of the music and was kinda blown away. Their self-titled album was still on repeat as of last year, and this one was a welcome release too! They really seem like musicians dedicated to the craft of making music. Meticulously crafted, written, recorded. Their songs can seem simple on the surface, but deeper listening is very rewarding as you start noticing all of their melodic intricacies. I’ll never forget taking a train ride hearing ‘Hello Sunshine’ for the first time. Transcendent experience.

7. Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE

When people ask me what kind of music I like, I find myself mentioning Bon Iver pretty often. I’ve enjoyed his journey from cabin guy with acoustic songs to one of the most experimental and creative minds in the indie / alternative space. Usually his albums are quite dense and heady experiences, but I found this project to be unusually easy-going. It breezes by. It’s the sound of an artist having fun. Creating without pressure and heavy expectations. And I really love how it has some classic early Bon Iver sounds in the ‘SABLE’ section of the album, with songs like SPEYSIDE which could be up there as one of his best. “If Only I Could Wait” and “There’s A Rhythm” are simply joyous.

6. Rosalía - LUX

This one caught me off guard. I knew Rosalía was experimental but I didn’t see this turn coming. A stunning record that draws from a rich history of music and religious themes. I was blown away by her use of so many languages to express different characters and ideas too. One of the most impressive parts to me was her ability to draw from so many influences and yet still have it feel like such a consistent album. Aided by Google Translate I was able to decipher a lot of the beautiful lyrical themes too. But wow, what a journey! More of this please.

5. Jay Som - Belong

It’s been 6 years since the last Jay Som album, Anak Ko, which I still listen to on a pretty regular basis! Since then she’s been earning her production credits working with some indie-music big hitters like boygenius, Lucy Dacus, beabadoobee. Her production really shines on this record. It sounds excellent. It’s cemented in my brain as the soundtrack to my trip to LA this year, when I blasted it in my rental car on most days! I love the collaborations with Hayley Williams and Jim Adkins (of Jimmy Eat World) - so fun to see her leaning into that Y2K indie-rock sound. But it’s the slow burner ‘Drop A’ that I find myself replaying over and over.

4. Big Thief - Double Infinity

Easily one of my favourite bands. And this album is surprisingly concise and grounded compared to their previous sprawling experimental masterpieces! It took a little while to get used to, and I’m still not sure that I’d say it’s one of their best albums, but the fact that it still made it this high up the list just goes to show how much I love Big Thief I guess! I also particularly related to the lyrics in Incomprehensible: “In two days it’s my birthday and I’ll be 33, that doesn’t really matter next to eternity, but I like a double number and I like an odd one too, and everything I see from now on will be something new.” Listening to that while approaching my own 33rd Birthday kinda hit different. Realising that there’s still so many new things to see and experience, so much mystery in the world, and yet, in light of eternity is it really that big of a deal to reach this age? Weirdly comforting in an existential way.

3. Sunset Rollercoaster - QUIT QUIETLY

I LOVE THIS ALBUM SO MUCH. And I’m slightly disturbed by the cover art so I swapped it out here for the back cover lol. But this is easily one of the best albums I’ve heard in the chill indie / rock space in a while! Sunset Rollercoaster have been killing it recently. Ever since I heard My Jinji in 2016 I’ve been on board, and followed their journey through various projects and collaborations. Catching their AAA tour live in Seoul is still one of my highlights of this year! But I think this album, seemingly surprised released out of nowhere, is their best work so far. It’s SO consistent, top-to-bottom. No skips. Each time I listen I like a different song. It’s their most solid songwriting and even has some genuinely moving and beautiful moments towards the end. I may have cried a little bit on the Satellite into Bluebird combo towards the end.

2. Quickly, Quickly - I Heard That Noise

I can’t get over how much I love this album. Having followed quickly, quickly from being an electronic artist and beat-maker, he always stood out as being distinctively creative and bold in his production choices. And it’s nice to see him settle into a more acoustic-folk sound here. But of course, his production choices still shine through and take these songs to the next level. What strikes me about this project is the balance of beauty and chaos. There’ll be a delicate acoustic ballad but with just enough noise and craziness beneath the surface to keep it from being a purely easy-listening album. The melodies really make me happy on this album, and I think the first time I heard the long, sprawling journey of ‘You Are’ at the end of the album, I ascended slightly into the air. What a superb project.

1. Oklou - choke enough (deluxe)

My Spotify wrapped told me that Oklou was my top artist every single month this year, and I can believe it. I describe her music as ‘dance music underwater’. It has the 90s / Y2K feel of artists like Alice Deejay, Chicane or Robert Miles but through a much more ambient lens. You can hear her classical training coming through with the way she plays her arpeggios and the melodic choices, but it’s in such a deep atmosphere that I was just hooked by. In most songs you can ‘feel’ the club beat even when it isn’t there. And for most of the album, it isn’t! There are very few moments with a clear drum beat, but when she does give it to you, it’s a great pay-off. This was already my album of the year but the deluxe version cemented its place even more with songs like ‘viscus’ and ‘dance 2’ probably being my favourite songs of the year. I’ve been listening all year and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.

Thanks for reading! I’ve shared a Spotify playlist below with a couple of songs from each album, and a song from each of my honourable mentions too. Would love to know what you’ve been listening to this year!

“You’ve got this. The …

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This past weekend my friends invited me out to a gathering in London called Renaissance. A church event about equipping creatives. I’ll be honest - sometimes I feel a little turned off by the idea of a Christian creative conference. We’re going to talk about Bezalel. And how he was filled with the Spirit to be a craftsman. How “everyone is creative”. How the first thing God did in Genesis was to create. All things I’ve heard before and things I’ve said before in my own talks!

I arrived with a certain degree of anticipation but also with my cynical hat on. The one I’ve been wearing pretty often for the last couple of years. I stood for the worship, I took notes in the messages, I was a good conference attendee. But it was in the silence - as God’s presence started to feel strangely tangible in the room, or at least our collective awareness of his presence increased, and people began to sing “worthy is the lamb” unprompted, that things really started to happen in my soul.

“Here we go,” I thought, rolling the eyes of my heart. People are going to sing this part over and over until it gets awkward and no one knows how to stop, because stopping would seem “unspiritual”. Classic. But after a short while, it became apparent this wasn’t just a manufactured moment. People were genuinely responding to the love of God and his presence among us. Fear came over my heart.

I tried my best to pray short prayers. The only kind of prayers I’ve been praying these days. “God, I’m sorry”, “thank you for your presence”. I knew we were in a Holy moment but something in me was deathly afraid to enter into it and open myself up to it.

In that moment, sitting at the back of the upstairs balcony in this conference, I looked around and saw people lost in worship. Singing their songs of love to God: hands raised, eyes closed, face radiant with the light of the Lord. I remembered being in that same place in my previous years, offering my worship to God. But now I’m here, back row, head bowed low and hands clasped tightly together.

I started to realise, I don’t think I deserve this. I shouldn’t be allowed in God’s presence. I had shut him out, but really I was trying to shut myself out from Him. He is too holy. The kind of beauty that is terrifying, and reveals my own ugliness and unworthiness in comparison.

I tried another couple of short prayers. “God, why am I resisting you?”. “Why am I afraid of this?”. And a thought came into my mind that didn’t feel like my own. It was calmer, clearer and kinder than any of my usual thoughts. “Because you’re hurting”. It came to me not with a pointing finger, but an overwhelming sense of compassion. It was the type of kindness the hardest heart couldn’t possibly resist. Almost instantly, tears came to my eyes. He sees my pain.

Honestly, I had even resisted the idea of being a hurt person. I’ve read a few too many stories of people deconstructing, expressing religious trauma and sharing about their church hurt. I didn’t want to be another one of those. I thought it too cliche, too predictable for a 33-year-old white, western pastor’s kid. (I’m an artist, I always want to be a little different and unique). The last thing I wanted was to fall into that predictable category that, sadly, so many other artists and peers have fallen into. But, like it or not, here I was.

Over the past few years, a few seeds of bitterness and anger had taken root in my heart. Disappointment, grief and unmet expectations had led me to doubt that God loved me, that he was even there at all. But that seemed crazy to me. As if God had done anything wrong. He’s God. Who am I to say that of him? Who was I to point a finger at the uncreated God? I knew that the problem was me. But the weight of my sin and the cost of following him was starting to become a heavy burden that after being beaten up by life and waves of grief, I didn’t know if I had the strength to keep bearing.

Church environments had become a place I started to feel unsafe. Sadly, the humanity of leaders in the past had led to some immense disappointment. And I was never a person to put a leader too high on a pedestal, I know that only Jesus is perfect. But yet, there were moments in my childhood that were such profound experiences for me. Conferences and events that changed the course of my life, and in which I’d made huge decisions about how I was going to live. It hurt to realise that the leaders of almost all of these movements that preached purity, holiness and consecration had major moral failures behind the scenes that were kept hidden. Their humanity was never on display and yet they were willing to set this incredibly high bar of expectation for the rest of us to live by.

To be honest, whenever I found myself in more charismatic environments where the music reached fever pitch and the volume and intensity of the room started building - my walls came up. The memories of allowing myself to be carried along in those moments before, only to be let down. To keep believing that something extraordinary and supernatural was just around the corner while life remained primarily ordinary and natural. I was tired. Tired of ‘pressing in’. Tired of feeling like the only sinner in a room of believers displaying their performative holiness. Tired of seeing the backstage personas that didn’t match the on-stage personalities. Tired of feeling like I’m not allowed to say I’m not doing ok, or I’m not feeling what others are feeling. I refused to let myself be carried away by manufactured hype. Not again. But this time, in the upper balcony of an 11th century church, sitting in silence, he found me.

Perhaps, in a way, I expected God to be tired of me too. The guy who isn’t really trying very hard. The guy who doubts God’s existence some days, who seems to have the self-control of a 3 year old in a cake shop, the one who can barely read 5 minutes of the Bible without getting distracted and shows up to church with arms folded and cynical heart. The last thing I expected to be met with was compassion. I came to him like the woman caught in adultery, expecting Jesus to throw the stone and instead I found him drawing in the sand, as the accusers were leaving one by one. Looking at me and saying “neither do I condemn you”.

He saw through all of that surface stuff, all the things that other people couldn’t see past, and he saw my deepest wound. The craziest part is that I didn’t even feel a pressure to name it and get some crazy healing moment. It was enough in that moment that he saw me. That he saw what even I couldn’t see. And up through the crack in the concrete of my heart started to grow the tiniest shoots of desire again. Maybe I do still want you, God. Maybe I do still long for your presence. Maybe I can love a God that still wants my hurting heart in the room.

The next morning the preacher concluded his message with the famous ‘Light of the World’ painting by William Holman Hunt. Jesus standing at the door of our heart and knocking. He mentioned the detail of the door handle being on the inside of the door - a sign that Jesus dignifies the human heart by giving us the choice to let him in or not.

And, again, in a moment of silence, I realised my door was closed. Not that I had lost my salvation, but somehow, I had tried to shut Jesus out of my life. In my pain, and the grief of the last few years, and all the unanswered questions I walked with, I had closed the door behind my saviour and tried to figure things out on my own.

I had told myself I was still following him, still in relationship with him. But in reality, I was reading books about him and trying to fill my head with information about him while he stood outside the door waiting to dine with me.

The preacher finished his message with the ‘altar call’. That part where they name a few issues that everyone probably has and then invite them down for prayer. I’d seen it many times before. But this time he named 3 things that struck me deeply. He called for people who feel the need to confess sin, for those who have grown cold and hardened their heart due to pain, and for those who wanted God to show them how to praise again. “Dang it.” I said under my breath. Still with my arms folded on the back row. But then I saw friends making their way down to the front.

I worried that if I go down, some random person is going to come up to me, with a Christian smile. Or worse yet, and I know it sounds a little big headed to say, but in an event like this one, there was a pretty high chance that whoever came to pray for me actually knew my music and my ministry, maybe even follows me online. The last thing I wanted was to start sharing all of this with somebody like that. But, I got over my pride and set off down the stairs into the front of the main hall. Within seconds of getting there I felt a hand on my shoulder - it was my friend from Berlin. We had got coffee together that morning and he was somebody I trusted. Someone who already knew my story and I knew I didn’t have to share too much. “Thank you Jesus!” I thought.

As he started to pray, he simply reminded me of the love of God. That God loves me, that he even loves my silliness and enjoys my goofy side. But it was a simple statement that unlocked something in me. “Thank you Jesus that even if Jonathan has closed the door, we know you love him because you keep knocking”. Tears, again.

In a moment I had a flashback to all the times I had built up disappointment in my heart. The laments, the prayers where I’d cried out ‘God where ARE you?’. The time when, just a couple of years after losing my Dad to cancer, we got news that my Mum was diagnosed with the same cancer in a very late stage and there was nothing they could do, and I gripped my steering wheel in the car as I yelled at God through tears “why is this happening again? Why won’t you do anything? And WHY ARE YOU SILENT?!”.

But it’s hard to hear the voice of someone you’ve closed the door on. It’s hard to feel the love of a close communion, a deep relationship when you’re living alone in the home of your heart. Recently I read Saint Augustine’s Confessions, in which he recounts the time he wandered far from the Lord:

“How presumptuous of me to say that you were silent, my God, when I drifted farther and farther away from you!~ Can it be true that you said nothing to me at that time? Surely the words which rang in my ears, spoken by your faithful servant, my mother, could have come from none but you? Yet none of them sank into my heart to make me do as you said… I thought that you were silent and that she was speaking, but all the while you were speaking to me through her.”

— Saint Augustine

I felt this so deeply because I knew that even if I wasn’t hearing from God in the usual way. I heard from those who loved him. My mother, my friends and family, my pastors. They spoke truth and love into my life so many times. And as my friend prayed for me in this moment, I realised this whole time I was convinced God didn’t love me, or at the least he wasn’t prepared to show that love to me. But with every loving word from a friend, I was hearing the knocking on the door.

I know with certainty that the times I tried to quit and run away from everything, something would stop me. Another knock. There would be a tiny moment of beauty, a glimmer of transcendence that made me realise that life isn’t futile or meaningless. That life isn’t just about my own happiness. There would always be a knock on the door. Every time.

Often that came to me through art as well. I recently watched Tree of Life, a movie that felt a lot like the book of Job. I appreciated how the film was interjected with short, simple whispers from the main characters. At least to my interpretation, they seemed like prayers. “Where do you live? Are you watching me?”. The film interrupts the narrative of childhood pain with a 30 minute, wordless montage of beauty - nature and life in all its mysterious splendour. And something in it connected with that deep longing in me. Sometimes the answer to the deepest questions in our heart is to touch something transcendent and unexplainable.

There were days I wanted to run from the thoughts of eternity. To live a small, quiet life, to just work hard, leave peacefully and be happy. To not worry about the existential questions of life and love and meaning. In so many ways, it seemed easier to me if God was out of the picture and none of this really mattered. It was easier to think life was just about myself, and being happy, and trying my best even if hard things happened along the way.

To quote Werner Heisenberg:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you”.

— Werner Heisenberg

It may not have been natural sciences, but the first sip of wrestling with these doubts and fears in my life led me to a feeling of unbelief at first. I think, as we start to really address the points of hurt in our hearts, the temptation is to look for the easy answers. Maybe this isn’t real. Maybe God isn’t good. Maybe the church just hurt me and I need to leave.

But the more you stay in the tension and in the wrestle, the more you realise God is not absent but in fact wrestling with you: give up too soon and you walk away full of disillusionment and bitterness, but keep wrestling and you come out the other side limping and leaning. Limping in full awareness of your humanity, and leaning entirely dependent on the grace of God to carry you through. In many ways, I feel like I’m starting to grasp the gospel all over again. I unpacked a lot of my spiritual journey on my album, Night. And I wrote specifically about this process in my song ‘Fall Back Into You’.

Where was God’s love for me in this time? It was right there all along. “Thank you Jesus that you keep knocking”. He’s been waiting at that door for years. And yes, he gives me the dignity of refusing to force his entry, but he also shows his unrelenting desire to be with me by never leaving that doorway. Not once did he stop knocking.

And so, I’m opening the door again. Expecting to find a judge but I’m finding a healer. The kind heart of someone willing to come into the sickness of my heart and tend to it until it beats strong again. He is more compassionate than I ever could have known.

I managed to catch a break-out session at this conference of a preacher sharing about recovering from Epic Christianity. His words were so comforting as he spoke about being allowed to “detox” from the environments and the things that aren’t good for you in your current time of processing. It gave me language for my life stage, and rang with the same compassionate tone as I had heard in the voice from the day before. Sometimes you need to give a sick person a little soup, or something small to eat before moving on to a full meal.

And so, I’m here, a recovering cynic, limping back to the way of following Jesus. I’m having to take myself out of certain environments for the time being until I’m ready for them. But I am finding so much life in friendships that don’t judge where I’m at and are willing for me to bring all my fears, questions and doubts to the table. They are showing me, as the ‘body of Christ’, the love of Jesus in this season of my life. I’m beginning to realise Jesus wants me at that table too. He’s not in a rush to answer all the questions just yet. But he does want to sit with me.

I remember so many times I told my friends “I just need to know why. If I can get an answer to my questions then maybe I can keep going”. But to quote Augustine again, speaking of people’s search for God:

“It is better for them to find you and leave the question unanswered than to find the answer without finding you.”

— Saint Augustine

The answers may come in time, maybe they won’t. But I’m starting to realise that God has a lot more room for the questions than I realised, and he is truly the kindest person I know. I hope you feel safe to open up to Him, and to experience that kindness too.

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I laughed, but it also struck a chord (no pun intended) in me. Life has felt very transient recently. Manchester to London, then Japan to help produce an album, straight into a UK tour, and then off to LA for a songwriting camp. I’m finally home again, though it feels like my soul is still catching up to my body. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for all of these opportunities. I get to spend my time travelling and making music - are you kidding me? 16-year-old Jonathan would be very excited to hear that I’ve been spending my time that way. And I’m very aware of the privilege that it is to do music full time.

There were days I dreamed of living some kind of nomadic life, heading from one place to the next. I was always looking forward to the next trip, the next chance to see somewhere new. Now, I feel so much peace in looking in the calendar and realising I’m going to be staying home. Artist life is seasonal, I recognise that. There’s a writing time that often involves a lot of home time, everything becomes very introspective and hidden for a while. And then suddenly, you take a step out from your creative cave like Link at the start of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and emerge out into the open world. You start making videos, getting active on social media, and then, if the opportunity presents itself, you share the songs live on stages!

But lately I’ve found myself longing for something a little more grounded, simple. It’s the small things rather than the big things that are bringing me joy and excitement these days.

I went to my sister’s house to meet my family. We all hugged and asked “where have you all been?”. We realised the last time we even saw each-other was a month ago at my concert in Manchester, even then it was mostly seeing them from the stage and brief conversations after the concert. The same thing happened at church. I showed up and friends looked surprised to see me. “Hello, stranger!” they said.

We went for lunch after church and I realised, I don’t want catch-up friendships. You know, the kind where you say “we should catch up!” and then only meet every couple of months to take turns recounting the highlights of the past weeks. I want, like everyone, to know and be known. To journey with people through this life. To break bread and watch movies, and share quotes from the books we’ve read. I guess, everyone is looking for their village. Their place to belong.

But, as Henri Nouwen says, there’s also a sense of coming home to yourself. Sometimes we hit the road and we run from things because we don’t really feel at home with our own mind, our own thoughts. That might be one of the most important things to work at in our life. To feel at home with yourself. The more I journey towards the peace of knowing that I am loved and known by God, the more I find peace in staying still and being home.

“Do you think you’ll do this forever?” my friend asked me on a long drive during my tour.

“I don’t know” I replied. “For the first time in a long time, I feel very open handed about this. I love music, and I know I always want to create. But career-wise, I could also see myself doing something else.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll open a cafe. Become a barista.” I laughed.

“I could see you doing that!”

On one of my late night TikTok scrolls, I came across somebody reviewing a pen, and in the comments, one simple sentence that sent me down a rabbit hole. “I love using these pens in my Hobonichi”. I had no idea what that word was, so I looked it up.

Turns out, it’s a Japanese brand that makes planners. Little notebooks with the days of the week and a calendar layout. The grid layout lends itself to very aesthetic layouts that appeals to the same part of my brain that was drawn to Notion a few years ago - watching hours of videos of people setting up their Notion templates for maximum productivity.

I’m always drawn to the idea of being productive. But I do also spend more time trying out new systems and methods vs actually doing anything productive. Typical creative.

It’s nothing new for me. I found an old school report as I was clearing out my Mum’s house this week. I was 9 years old. The teacher wrote: “Jonathan is a very able boy who has much to offer, particularly in the way of creativity when a project captures his imagination. He just needs to be careful that he puts the same amount of effort into the more routine aspects of schoolwork, however, as his work is sometimes a little careless.” She clocked my tea. 24 years later I think the same could be said of my current work habits.

But anyway, now my laser focus of inspiration was pointed towards these little paper planners. This. This will be the one that fixes me. If I just get a Hobonichi, my life will be so much better.

I walked past a stationary store in LA called Short Hand. It was beautiful. A small establishment with one girl behind the counter, and every wall arranged with planners, journals, pens, rulers, stickers - all colour coded. I stepped inside and had a look around. And there it was. A Hobonichi Weeks planner. I flipped it over to the other side. It’s 45 dollars?? Still, a small price to pay for fixing my life altogether, I reasoned. It was a 2026 planner so I knew I couldn’t use it just yet. So I also picked up a Midori grid notebook, which I’ve been using as my practice notebook. But I’m already counting down the days until January 1st when I can open the new planner.

But, all jokes aside, it really has been helping me a lot. Will the habit stick any longer than all the other productivity methods I’ve used in the past? I don’t know. Most likely not. But the past 3 weeks, this has been my process:

Every Monday, I find a quiet cafe, and I draw out the days of the week, a small area for ‘goal’, a bigger one for ‘to do’ and a small one for ‘reflection’. In each day, I write a couple of sentences of what I did that day. Just to put it to memory. To recognise the good things that happened that day, no matter how small. Lunch with a friend, or a book I finished, or an afternoon trip. Each Monday I reflect on the previous week, what went well and how I felt overall. Then I write my goal for the next week - the one or two things that I would feel would make this week a success.

The to-do list becomes my dumping ground for all those little tasks that pop into my head. And then, it goes in my bag, and this little notebook goes with me everywhere. It’s grounding me in a rhythm that I really enjoy. It’s making me stop and take notice of the little joys that I find every single day. The things to be grateful for. And it’s helping me not to use my phone so much. In the moments I sit down and don’t know what to do I can look at my to-do list and pick something to focus on. And of course, I feel the rush of dopamine from ticking off a task, or even putting a little coloured sticker on there! (Yes, these are the things that give me a thrill these days. I am truly over 30.)

All of this to say. I’m finding so much joy in the simple things these days. In the routines. The little moments that can so easily fly by if we don’t take note. I’ve also been filling the pages with notes from conversations with friends. Those little gems of lines that pop out and make my heart jump a little bit. I keep hold of them. I treasure all of these small moments, because they really make up my life.

Life is full of the small moments, more than the headlines and the highlights we post to social media. More than the things we ‘catch up’ about. Joy is usually found whispering in the little things. It’s more of a still, small voice.

In this short life, I imagine it will be these moments that mean the most to me in the end.

Here are a few things of the moments I pulled from my notebook this past week:

• The sun coming out on a Monday morning

• Meeting my sister for lunch

• The pistachio cake from Pollen bakery

• Bible study and food with my friends on Friday night

• Home cooked meals

• Getting new bowls from IKEA

• Leo the dog giving me cuddles

• Buying flowers for the apartment

• Hanging an original painting in my living room

• The new ‘Table Songs’ album from Porter’s Gate

• Finished reading Anam Cara by John O’Donohue

What are the little moments bringing you joy this week?

Sometimes when I write a song it shifts and takes on a new shape or form later on. That was the case with my song ‘Daydream’. The verse comes from a song I wrote in March 2024. A song about grappling with the realisation that when you love something or someone so deeply, it becomes harder to let it go. In a way, it was my lamenting of being a ‘feeler’.

I…

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Where are the songs for two people who love each-other but ultimately come to the realisation that they’re destined to go separate ways? For the relationship that feels equal part healing and breaking? The songs for the kind of relationship that destroys fear and sets free? The songs for the times you’re trying to let go but also, deep down, still holding on?

The melody and lyrics for this song’s chorus came to me in a moment while I was taking a long drive alone, where many of my song ideas arrive. I found myself drawn to this line: “stretch out your wings so wide, my little dragonfly”. I wondered if I’d just picked a word that sounded nice to sing, or maybe subconsciously borrowed a reference from Sufjan Stevens’ heart-breaking song “Fourth of July”.

When I got home I searched up the meaning of a Dragonfly in literature and in various cultures. It was perfect. In Japan, the Dragonfly is a seasonal symbol of Autumn - representing rebirth, courage, strength and happiness.

In other cultural and literary references, it represents the transient nature of life and love. Dragonflies go through a type of metamorphosis, like a butterfly, but they live short adult lives. They are fast, darting and flying in a way that feels like something that can’t be held onto.

I’ve been drawn to the images of flowers during the writing of this album: something beautiful and temporary. And in many ways, my album NIGHT is a reflection on fleeting beauty. The moments in life that feel wonderful and yet bittersweet because we know they won’t last forever. And this is the lane that Dragonfly finds itself in. It’s full of longing, grief, hope, fond memories and the kind of tension of a heart caught in the in-between.

The final chorus is a resolute release: “we had our place to hide, short-lived but full of life, so stretch out your wings so wide” but then in the penultimate line, the pang of tension: “can I see you one more time?”. I love finishing a song with a question. It feels like the final scene in the movie Inception with the spinning top. Did it fall? Did it keep going?? Was it real or a dream?

This Spring, I spent some time in Japan with some great friends and musical collaborators, bringing my song ideas to life in a wonderful studio just outside of Tokyo. This is the first song from that session that is seeing the light of day. There are plenty more to come. But it was really special to bring friends into a vulnerable and personal space and have them help me to craft the sonic space of the song.

Much of this album was made alone, in my Mother’s house, but this song was brought to life in community, in a shared space. This song truly wouldn’t be what it is without Caleb’s steady rhythms and subtle accents, Gideon’s piano tracks dancing between equal parts dark and shimmering, and Daniel’s aching guitar tones that sweep across the song and lift the final instrumental section into the perfect musical representation of a heart held in tension.

Dragonfly, along with another new single, Safe, is available for streaming today. I’ve released it alongside a lyric video featuring photography from the past 3 years. A way of looking back at memories, but also a collection of photos that play with light and shadow. I’ve written about that enough on my Substack so if you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know what the theme of light and shadow means to me!

Come see me on tour!

12 SEP: LONDON w/ Josh Garrels
16 SEP: BIRMINGHAM
17 SEP: EDINBURGH
21 SEP: MANCHESTER
23 SEP: BRISTOL
24 SEP: BRIGHTON

https://thegoodticket.tix.to/JOTA-UK-Tour

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I’ve processed a lot through this album and one of the things I felt challenged to do was just to name things plainly. To say it like it is. In between the poetic imagery and the references to scripture and other concepts, I position a few lines that just say it like it is.

It feels strangely vulnerable to be so straight-forward but the truth of the matter is I wrestle with loneliness on a regular basis. I live alone. I lost both my parents, the people who felt like home to me. And going through a break-up meant letting go of the person I truly loved. Honestly, being in my 30s I started to let go of the hope of ever finding someone like that. There were days I told myself that if heartbreak hurts this much, I don’t ever want to love again. There were moments I felt the same way about my parents. Maybe if we weren’t so close, and our family didn’t have such a tight bond, then this wouldn’t sting as much. Maybe it’s safer not to love people or be close with people.

But finding comfort in my family and my siblings during those moments also reminded me that I was, in fact, incredibly grateful for the gift of family and the closeness we have. That was a gift my parents left us. But the good being so good does make the bad feel really bad. The ache of loneliness feels even deeper after experiencing such a rich sense of belonging. When the good things are really good, the bad things feel really bad.

In my processing, I read a lot. I turned to scripture. I read books by people like Henri Nouwen, John O'Donohue and Rilke. They talked about the importance of ascetic solitude and “befriending your loneliness”. I scoffed a bit at the idea. “This isn’t something to befriend” I thought to myself “it’s a burden to carry”.

And I’d think about the things I was taught growing up in church. I’d think about God’s omnipresence. Friends would remind me through prayers, texts and conversations that I’m never really alone. That God’s presence is always with me. And yet somehow, even though I’d nod in agreement and know deep down they were right - the reality of it felt so out of each, so ethereal. There were times I could sense God’s nearness and presence. But, if I was a character in one of those RPG games where I could press a button and switch the camera into third-person view, I would see it’s still just me sat here in my apartment, no one else around.

People would remind me that my relationship with God is the ultimate relationship, the best thing there is. But then I find myself sat with my Bible, trying to read a passage I don’t understand, speaking prayers out into the room and not hearing anything back, and I’d think - really?

A friend encouraged me with 2 Corinthians 4:

I get it. Those tangible things in front of us are temporary. Fleeting. I know this all too well. Sometimes I just wish those eternal things were also a little more ‘seen’. I want to be like the disciples, to sit face to face with Jesus and have breakfast, and ask him questions, and see his facial expressions. But even Jesus told his disciples that it’s better that he goes, because then he will send the Spirit. I think about this often and wonder how much I must underestimate the role of the Holy Spirit in my life. For Jesus to say that it is better than literal face to face communion with him? I believe but help my unbelief.

And sometimes these thoughts ‘cause me to run. To go in search of the tangible, the temporary, the face to face. I don’t want to sit with the loneliness. I try and fill my calendar with things to do and people to see, but then when I’m with people I feel overwhelmed and sometimes still not fully seen and I wish I was back home. I try and fill the gap with validation, posting things that people like, reading nice comments on my songs, getting a complement from the stranger working at a store in town, anything! Because sitting with myself, “befriending my loneliness”, meant facing things I don’t want to face. It means time to be alone with my thoughts. The thoughts I try and block out, all the things I’ve done and ways I’ve messed up. All the parts that I can’t cover up with any amount of performance. And it’s in that fear and hesitation that I wrote the second verse, from an outsider perspective (maybe a friend? maybe the Spirit?)

And then I flip my confession of loneliness into an ‘even when’.

I spoke with a couple of friends during a songwriting session recently about the life journeys we had been on, the feelings and the thoughts that come from our experiences. But one thing that we could all say with confidence was: God never failed us. He never actually let us down. Sure, we might have disappointments and things that weren’t answered in the way we thought. But deep down, we know he’s there. It’s just something we can’t shake.

On the days I wrestled with doubt, when prayers felt like they landed right back in the silence of my room and I tried to run away, I would run into his hand, hemming me in like a little hamster trying to run off a table. I’d slam into this wall that I couldn’t deny, reminding me that he’s still very much there. He might be silent, he might not be answering any of my questions, but when I start to run, I know that’s him stopping me.

And even though I wrestle with all these thoughts on a regular basis, I know one thing to be true. We all desire to be seen and known, at the deepest level. And I don’t think any person can really hit that mark. I don’t think the best parent or partner can fully see every part of us, know us, and love us perfectly and unconditionally. And when we pin all of our hope of that in a person, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

A few days ago I found myself set around a table in London pub, talking through some of these very feelings. A friend mentioned the exact same thing: “Do you ever think about why Jesus said it was better that he goes away?”. I nodded the biggest nod I could. We spoke about it for a while and realised, as well as the obvious answer of him sending his Spirit, it may also be for the reason of sitting around tables like the one we were sat around. To be around one another, in deep friendship and connection. Each with the Spirit of God living in us. In that way, we all, across the world have access to Jesus, through other believers. The body. And perhaps part of our ache is that we haven’t explored the depths of what real, soul friendship is meant to look like. The type of friendship Jesus intended for his church. Perhaps it takes us leaning into one another and allowing ourselves to be fully seen and known in that space, to feel the love that is by our side.

That’s why the second chorus of this song is a reminder to myself. Sometimes I sing it in confidence and sometimes in sheer defiance in spite of how I feel.

And when the fear creeps in that maybe God won’t love me if he fully sees me and knows me. That maybe he’ll want to take away his love when he finds out how up and down I can be, how fickle my heart is. Then I hit myself with the final reminder:

It’s already set. Done deal. He loves me, and I can’t convince him otherwise. No amount of “but do you know about…?” can alter his opinion. He sees everything. He knows things about me that I don’t even know about me. And he still chooses for his love to be with me wherever I go. What outrageous kindness!

So this is my song to blast when I feel alone. When I don’t know what’s happening and I feel that old ache in my heart. I sing it until I believe it a little more.

“Nothing can change your mind”.

“At night his song is with me”

— Psalm 42:8

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I used to think of the night as a purely negative thing - phrases like “the dark night of the soul” made it seem like nothing good can come from these periods. But recently my perspective shifted to see the good that comes from the times in our life that feel like “night”. The night is when we rest, it’s a healing time, our body literally recovers in our sleep at night. It’s a time to come back to our home, to be quiet, to be still. As John O’Donohue says:

“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. […] The struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”

After a period of grief, heartbreak and identity crisis, I had to face my own ‘night’. It was a wrestle, a fight - at its worst moments it felt falling apart completely, but in time it started to feel more like healing. God held me the whole time. I finally faced things I’d always been afraid to face. I had to un-learn and re-learn what it means to love and be loved. And through the whole process, music became my outlet. I set aside expectations of what a ‘Jonathan Ogden’ song was supposed to be and I just started to write from my heart. Writing became a lifeline for me and a way to process everything that was going on. Some of these songs I thought I would never share. They were just ways for me to get through the night. But I began to see that these songs were not just for myself. They were bridges and open hands to anyone going through their own struggles.

I moved my studio back to the old loft space in the family home, to look after my Mum in her final months. On the days I felt overwhelmed, I went upstairs and I made music. I produced and mixed everything myself this time. I collaborated with a few friends remotely, having them send in their parts, but for the most part, this was a solitary process and a deeply personal work. Several songs were written through tears. I poured everything into this one.

The result is, NIGHT, my next album, set to be released on September 12th. For those familiar with my music, you may find this one to be a little different. And yet, in many ways this feels like the most “Jonathan Ogden” album I’ve made. A mixture of hopeful psalms, honest prayers, laments and songs that tell my story. Grief and hope walk hand-in-hand on this album. I needed to make this album, and for those who need to hear it, I hope it can be your companion on the journey.

P.S come and see me on tour in the UK with Taylor Armstrong!

12 SEP: LONDON w/ Josh Garrels

16 SEP: BIRMINGHAM

17 SEP: EDINBURGH

21 SEP: MANCHESTER

23 SEP: BRISTOL

24 SEP: BRIGHTON

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Like many of my favourite songs, Set Me Free seemed to just pour out of me in one writing session. The more I write songs the more mysterious it seems to me. I have moments where I’m crafting and refining, but there are also times it feels like I just showed up at the right time and happened to catch something special. That’s how it felt writing this song. It felt prophetic.

These past few years I’ve been learning what it means to live free from shame. Something that has held me back for most of my life. I wanted to write from the point of view of finally feeling the release from the grip that shame can have on a heart and mind. It began with a meditation and a paraphrase of Psalm 40:1. “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.”

From that moment the song changes tempo and shifts into a new section, I saw the tempo change like a change of heart. Or even like a doorway to a new place, a movement into a new position. And then the words started to flow. I wrote about seeing visions of Jesus:

And I reflect upon the feelings of finally feeling free of all the weight of life and the things that held me down for so long.

In reality, this felt like a song from the future. I didn’t necessarily feel “free” as I wrote this song. I still wrestled with the same things, I still carried the same questions and the weight that I’d so often felt. But picturing this reality of freedom some time in the future gave me hope for the present moment. I realise that there are some ways we can experience freedom in this lifetime, and there are others that I may not experience until I reach eternity.

The song took on extra meaning for me as I thought about eternity - our true home and ultimate place of freedom. In the final weeks of her life, my Mum asked me if I was writing anything new. I had just finished this song so I played it to her and it seemed to bring a smile to her face. It ended up being the last song of mine she heard.

Weeks later when I was listening to the song, I heard it as if it were written from her perspective, experiencing the true freedom of eternal life with her Lord and Saviour. The song has a special place in my heart for that reason. Sometimes when a song flows out, I’m not even sure myself what it means. But when it takes on a new meaning even after I’ve written it, it makes me wonder if the song was a gift from beyond myself.

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Also, while you’re here. I’m going on tour in the UK this year, with my friend Taylor Armstrong! It’s going to be a more intimate / acoustic style tour this time around but I’m really excited for it.

12 SEP: LONDON w/ Josh Garrels
16 SEP: BIRMINGHAM
17 SEP: EDINBURGH
21 SEP: MANCHESTER
23 SEP: BRISTOL
24 SEP: BRIGHTON

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Verse 1

Met you in the autumn
M…

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