Of the bird called carduelis carduelis, there are hundreds of very clear appearances in religious and secular art - if you fancy some better-researched renaissance info, Herbert Friedmann has the book for you, called The Symbolic Goldfinch. But I didn’t know about any of this when I wrote a poem, years ago, one morning.
As botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer says, "The idea of reciprocity, of recognizing that we humans do have gifts that we can give in return for all that has been given to us [by nature] is, I think, a really generative and creative way to be a human in the world."
The album opener is ‘Kingfishers Catch Fire’, a song I've been trying to harness for years. Though it got a 2020 update, the lyric was mostly written in 2014, whirling out of me with caffeinated ease in a single session...
For Flora & Fauna, I’ve been recording demo’s at home, to flesh out or re-draft later. Often it’s like a body having all its cells regenerated – every original recorded element, or cell, gets replaced by a better take or better idea, but overall it’s still the same beast. This one went through sooo much re-drafting.
Culture Me Up 