I became involved with Utrophia after meeting Steve Molyneux when our bands played on the same bill at the Spitz in 2003. I lived out of town but began to attend Utrophia events when I could and played music at some of them, either with bands or in improv groups. I had music included on the 2nd Utrophia compilation, and later the 3rd and the 4th. I was keen to chip in at events where I could as I fell in love with the joyous and unpretentious nature of this arts network, the first Cwm festival, in particular, broke my heart.
I became a more 'definite' member of the collective when I took up a studio at the project space in September 2007, the last few months of the engine house that we'd all had so many different kinds of joy in. When we moved studios to the Ice Cream Factory, I began to make films, initially about Utrophia, because I wanted to contribute a record of the things that had happened at the previous project space. In the end I made 6 parts of something we've shown as a 'promotional' film: Events before and external to the original project space; Project space happenings; Bands that make up and surround Utrophia; The Marching Band; The third Cwm festival; and Utrophia's Public programme.
For a while I continued to make instrumental music in my new studio, and took a brief detour back into visual art, culminating in my ´Moving Paintings´ exhibiton at Utrophia, which was also shown at the now sadly defunct Foundry in Shoreditch. After that, the time I spent in my studio was mostly working on songs, rehearsals and recordings for the folk group I formed, Mouth 4 Rusty.
Towards the end of 2009, my chief preoccupation for Utrophia became converting the 'Left Side of the Barn' space into a place for music nights, puppetry and small theatre performances, which lead to a flurry of beautiful, magical nights. Shortly after completion, I set up an echo chamber using the Utrophia project space, which I used on recordings for my own projects and for a couple of performances by Ben Cummins. More often than not, I'm the Utrophia soundguy, I also write and edit a lot of copy for the website.
In 2011, after much searching by all of us, I negotiated securing the third Utrophia project space, 120 Deptford High Street.
Outside of Utrophia, I work as a sound engineer, play guitar, drums, melodica, glockenspiel, bass, percussion and a little clarinet and berimbau. I have periods of making short films and videos, drawing and painting, contribute shows for Creot Radio and occasionally write articles for magazines, but my main obsession seems to be sound.