Business Interruptus But Business As Usual!

I bought a 2-terrabyte external hard drive this week so I can safely store and keep copies of all the work I’m about to do in 2026. To prepare for the new arrival, I spent a couple of days re-organising earlier hard drives, and clearing space on my laptop. I know. What a terminally tedious way to open a new article! You may already have stopped reading.

For the last few days, I’ve been revisiting the songs for “Heritage”, the collaborative album I’m creating with my son Duncan. It’s been long delayed as life and house moves got in the way, so before life once more gets in the way, we thought we’d try and nail the album in the next few months. We have half of the songs roughly recorded already, and those are the ones I’m starting work on first.

The songs for this album are folk songs we’ve known as a family: traditional songs, songs of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and later songs that really struck a chord as we drove to holiday locations in and around this country and into Europe. Songs create memories, and evoke the atmospheres, sights and sounds we enjoyed back then, whether to the Isle of Skye, Tain on the Moray Firth, Norfolk, Cornwall, or northern France, Belgium and Holland. It’s amazing the detail that comes back to me from those trips, from those songs.

I remember driving along the side of Loch Ness to a tape of Runrig’s “Play Gaelic” and Capercaillie’s “Sidewaulk” as we approached Culloden: appropriate music for our journeys through the Highlands and on to the Western Isles. You can’t buy those experiences, but you can still buy the music. Sadly, the monetary value of music and the value of art, unless it’s a form of high art, has diminished to the point where only a small minority of artists can make a living from their craft.

As creators and innovators, we are now challenged with finding different ways to promote our music, and this at a time when most economies are sluggish, our improving relationship with the EU following our insane exit still places hurdles of regulation and Customs Duty in our paths, and Trump’s excessive and arbitrary tariffs on small parcels going from here to there makes it impossible for most of us to sell physical products into the US. If he remains in power, he will undoubtedly impose a government tax on digital products.

I’m still in regular contact with most of my US supporters and remain firmly of the belief that this storm will eventually pass. With the renewed scrutiny of social media for UK citizen’s wanting to travel to the US, I expect there’s less than a zero chance that people with political beliefs like mine would be allowed in, so the option of playing ‘live’ would also be denied to many. With all of this crap going on, the appreciation and support I receive from my US followers feels extra special. It shows there’s a connection beyond the turmoil, and that folks over there are as anxious as we are for the restoration of ‘business as usual’ as soon as possible.

For the present, it’s back into Berevic this afternoon to bring “Heritage” back on track. Duncan now has a garden office/studio. In his day job, he’s a project manager for a company that supplies renewables to council properties in Scotland, with current projects centring on the Moray Firth just up the road from Culloden. So there’s also a cycle of life in play as we put together this important new work. 

We’re not going to put a release date on “Heritage” just yet, because every time we do that something happens to slip it forward in time. I have other projects pending for the Spring so it would be ideal if we can put at least the recording of the album to bed before then. Ali Karim is ready to add his production from his new hideout when we’re ready.

We all hope you’ll enjoy the ride!

Peace.

John