image: @lurue.renee
late summer 2025
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fundraiser event and donations:
https://dandelion.events/e/x0cdn
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On Saturday 22nd Feb I'll be playing a new Sound Journey at a dance to raise funds for the completion of the debut Manarva album that I have been working on for the past 2 years.
If you can't make it but would like to donate there are options on the event page.
Crafting this new album has been the most epic musical undertaking of my life, and is the culmination of all my musical experience over a lifetime.
Over the past 2 years I have been creating Sound Journeys for dance events. These can be found here:
Building these journeys has been an adventure. Countless hours spent intently listening and crafting sets that have an exquisite flow and story to them has been a massive musical eduction.
I started dancing 5 rhythms in Brighton back in 2007 and have been dancing ever since across many dance floors over the world.
In 2011 I started dancing contact improvisation which also become a big part of my life.
I have since played improvised live music for many events in both these worlds which has been an amazing avenue to develop musically.
2 years ago I started seriously applying myself to DJing and have been holding Ecstatic Dance Journeys. Crafting these Sound Journeys has significantly impacted the original music I have been making alongside them. There's a real art to making a musical wave that works as a whole complete story. My interest has been in making the transitions as seamless as possible, allowing the wave tell a story from beginning to middle to end. To take listeners through a landscape of musical flavours that combine and compliment each other like the different ingredients of a great meal, or characters and scenes in a story. To take all of these sounds and shape them into a diverse yet cohesive whole.
I've been influenced by every genre that I've spent so much time with over the past couple of years and they have all found a way into this new project. Whether ambient, minimal bass music, dubstep, African rhythms, Kumbia Dub and on and on and on... I've been privileged and honoured to spend so much time seeking and exploring new sounds. Somewhat to my surprise, all the elements and production techniques I was hearing in other genres started showing up in my own work. It was never my intention to begin with, but something I couldn't ignore once it started happening.
The more I realised what was possible, the more my ears expanded their capacity for subtlety and depth, the more curious I became about shaping this new batch of songs into something far beyond what I first envisioned. I've witnessed countless moments of transformation in myself and others on the dance floor or in simply listening to a piece of music. My goal as an artist is to follow the breadcrumbs I am given so that the work may lead to similar moments in those for whom it resonates.
I've been making music since I was a teenager. I picked up a guitar age 11 and making music has been my constant companion ever since. I produced 8 albums of alt-folk songs under the name Julius Way from 2006-2020.
In 2021 I had my first true encounter with Covid. Laying in bed and feeling like death for days, I occupied my time occasionally bidding on some auctions sites to buy and sell tech gear. I ended up with some new musical gizmos, with no initial intention to use them. But before selling I thought I'd just give them a little try. And in that fateful moment, a whole new world of sound possibility opened up.
I had a new batch of songs ready to record and these new tools became the avenue that enabled them to expand into musical worlds previously unaccessible to me.
After a couple of years of experimentation I had the beginnings of an album taking shape and took the plunge into working on the project full-time in 2023.
This took me down endless new avenues of sound exploration and experimentation and has ultimately culminated in a soon-to-be-finished piece that I'm delighted and relieved to be able to share with you. Relieved because the journey has been intense. It has seen me through a radical upheaval of everything I previously had going on in life. Coming to the end of this musical journey also feels like a landing pad for what has been a most interesting and unusual time.
2 years ago I started a lifestyle of housesitting, looking after many wonderful dogs and cats, as a way of creating time and space to focus on this project. It has been a gift that has carved out space to follow that which I am called to do. With my guitar and mobile studio in the car I've travelled up and down the country and overseas, busy working away each day while there's a dog snoring or cat purring in the background.
Countless homes and animal companions later and I have something of a finished piece ready to go. With just some final honing and crafting to do, running a comb through the knots and smoothing out the edges.
I look forward to sharing it with you x
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