A time of change. Though some would say it is always the time of change. The illusion of shapes. The imprint they have on a mind. Pathways worn deep.  Grooves of the assumed – until a landslide, an earthquake, a breakup, occurs. And so we are blessed with the task of release. The lights flashing up off the water already know this. We get to hug trees that stand crooked with their wounds and ever reaching stillness. We get to watch cascades of rubbish mingle with sweet wide waters. We get to see the open plan of a fisherman’s face, the space it has learned from watching water flow. And we get to notice the absence of water, in fact, in the stiff mugs of the city folk. But music is water…

On tour with Kottarashky & The Rain Dogs.  We get to bring loud dense sound, sensual rhythm and calls from the cosmos to underground bars, where youth and youth at heart, throb and drink. We get to drive and drive, and watch winter trees passing by like paper cutouts against the affectionate pressing in of a low sun. We get to forget and remember, and forget again, the people we thought we were, the people we thought we needed. Just the sun now, the thistles, and the wind. The wind, caressing the land, the wind picking the foam up off the waves, the wind coursing through the instruments, that breath moving from mouth to mouth, and back alone.

And through this thing, this music, that passes, we get to die, all together, and we love each other better for it.  One morning, in the old, old town of Veliko Tarnovo, I sang to the Yantra River…