Friends, I hope autumn finds you in good spirits! While spring is more typically associated with rebirth, autumn is a watershed season, where one thing ends and another begins. In its own way it’s the most beautiful and poetic of the seasons. And so it has proved for us. Its been a long time since I updated you all and the intervening time has been a reflective and eventful period for us as a band. Early in the summer Phil and Lucy decided to leave the band to concentrate on their own musical projects after contributing so much of themselves to The Magic Lantern over the last few years. Rather than try to find replacements for them, which would have been impossible, I decided that it was time for a change. We played our last gig with the full band line up at the Cambridge Folk Festival in July and while a huge storm raged over head and the last notes of Phil’s guitar on ‘Cut From Stone’ rang out, one thing ended and another began.

The Magic Lantern started with me playing my songs on my own to my friends. Since then it has grown and changed beyond anything I could imagine thanks to your continued support and with all the wonderful musical creativity of Dave, Lucy, Phil, Ben, Zac, Ellie and most importantly, Fred, whose incredible arrangements came to define the sound of the band. But in taking some time to think about the direction I want to take the new songs in, I realised that what I want to get back to is the emotional intensity and directness of playing them on my own – simply, honestly and I hope, beautifully. So going forward, The Magic Lantern will be me playing solo but leaving open the possiblity of collaborating with different artists and musicians. I hope you will enjoy the new solo direction and can’t wait to play for you all. J x