I was an unusual musical nerd from a young age in terms of my listening diet. My brick-shaped mono cassette player (these were pre-ghettoblaster days) was a pretty constant companion. I didn't have many tapes: Handel's Water Music was number one for a very long time until it stretched and distorted to such an extent that even I couldn't bear it. I had to resort to Benjamin Britten's Curlew River after that instead... a tougher proposition. A few years later, my big brother - considerably cooler than me - organised a family whip-round to scrape together enough for an early model Walkman for my birthday. He accompanied this with a copy of Super Trouper, concerned (rightly) that I was becoming irretrievably dull. Sadly, Abba didn't catch on, and I soon replaced it with a much-loved cassette of Simon Standage's classic Four Seasons with The English Concert.

But it was Radio 3 that really shaped my listening over the years. My father, before me, always swore that he had been educated by the 'Third Programme' and, to this day, R3 has an uncanny knack of mirroring my musical interests at any given time. Yes, there is a fairly high proportion of the old warhorses - Brahms symphonies, Beethoven sonatas, Verdi operas, and so on. But this is diluted by a surprisingly adventurous streak that takes in experimental music, spoken word, jazz, ambient electronica and music by lesser-known (often female) composers.

Imagine, then, my childish delight on discovering that a track from the new Full of Noises album - en plein air - was to be played on R3 Late Junction, presented by Verity Sharp, on Thursday 23rd May.  Late Junction is an incredibly precious thing in the modern one-size-fits-all musical world: after they've played all the Bach, Haydn and Shostakovitch during the day, those nice inquisitive people at Radio Three give airspace to the otherwise unheard - Kalimba players from Zambia get their moment in the limelight, alongside Appalachian song, avant-garde electronica, Galician bagpipers and, er...me. Weird music of the World unite!

The show is on iPlayer for a while - click here for the link (Full of Noise can be heard at about 17:30) but, in case you miss it, the track that Late Junction played was this one: The Meadow - 23/04/17 - 5am. It was recorded outside on the tiny island of St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, at dawn on a beautiful Easter sunrise. The dawn chorus was deafening and the island cockerel was in full voice...

Back in the studio, alongside my producer John Elliott (of London-based folk/electronic ensemble The Little Unsaid - a man of unique and subtle musicianship) I added piano and electronica, aiming always to remain faithful to the atmosphere and circumstances of the original improvisation. The piano fragments on The Meadow, for example, hint at the opening of Bach's St Matthew Passion (it was recorded at Easter) and the track uses the field recording of the island cockerel to reference the part played by that thrice-betraying bird in the Easter story. 

​If you would like to find out more about ​en plein air, including streaming, downloading or purchasing the entire album, you can do so here.

​It is good to get away from Scilly occasionally…  To be overloaded with such pure sensory beauty on a constant basis - that endless sea and sky, that unspoiled air, that pristine soundscape - can lead to a loss of perspective.  In the same way, the social minutiae of small community life need, from time to time, to be placed in the context of 7.5 billion other people going about their daily human business. ​

10 years ago… I am at a gig that will turn out to be one of the most important of my life, sitting, spellbound, in the audience at Old Town Inn on St Mary’s. I have only just learnt to call them ‘gigs’ rather than ‘concerts’ having grown up on a geeky playing and listening diet of almost exclusively classical repertoire.

I had barely picked up an instrument since leaving college: the intense effort in attempting to master the demands of those classical pieces as a young musician had left me more than a little disillusioned. The beautiful, if temperamental, oboe which I had done battle with over the years had been passed on to a younger player.  Instead I had moved to Scilly with my wife and was slowly becoming a different person - one who went out in the dark to catch Conger Eels with a long line and a torch; one who was obsessed with the weekly ritual of gig rowing; and one who was struggling to master the portfolio of skills required to qualify as an ‘island man’ - emergency-plumbing/tractor-driving/shed-filling/etc.

But it was as if I had forgotten to pack a bit of myself when we filled that big blue Pickford’s container and set off for island life. I wasn’t becoming an ‘island man’ as fast as I wanted. (I have still never learnt how to drive a tractor - though my shed is pretty full now, and I have a beard). The growing realisation of this 'shortcoming' was tough to take at times. At low ebb, on a whim, I had recently ordered an alto saxophone and a penny whistle - my subconscious seemed to have worked out exactly what had been missing in my island world, even if I was oblivious. So Dalla arrived into my life on that evening in the Old Town Inn at the perfect moment.  ​