Make love your goal...

The full version of Gabrielle Aplin's The Power of Love which is about to hit our screens as the soundtrack to John Lewis' charming Christmas 2012 advert...

Those of us ancient enough will recall this is a stripped down, alternative version of one of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's number one hits. FGTH, fronted by charismatic singer Holly Johnson, was one of those incendiary yet short lived bands in the 80s that made fantastic music with the assistance of legendary producer Trevor Horn.

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Whoever has an ear to hear...

For those with family members, friends and senses that understand, an excellent mini TED talk...

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Living and breathing the hard day's night...

Whilst it's been a bit of a journey, along with a sometimes fraught learning curve, it really is a great joy to have finally launched our little book, The Secret Chord . This has been a co-authored project with my buddy Jonathan Evens who has been brilliant at curating all my vague ideas into something tangible as well as encouraging me to take the step of now writing words rather than principally music. We have taken heed of others and their projects, too, such as Sam Norton, Kester Brewin and Liz Hinds, as all of whom have completed self managed publishing projects and freely shared their progress.

So far The Secret Chord is available on Amazon Kindle with the paperback hot on its heels for release at the end of this month. If you don't own a Kindle there are some excellent freebie Apps for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android tablets and smartphones.

To supplement the book, both in physical form and when reading it on a non internet enabled Kindle, we have embarked on creating The Secret Chord website with all the web links and biographical notes along with some extra goodies. This will be more dynamic as we have plans for lots more content real soon...

We very much look forward to hearing your thoughts, please be gentle!

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Pussy Riot thanks The Voice Project...

A thank you to the Voice Project community from Pyotr (and yep, that's baby Gera in the background sound). More info on how you can support via the excellent http://voiceproject.org/

"Seeing all this amazing solidarity across the world is one of the few things that gets the girls going through their brutal and grey prison days..."

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The church is dead... long live church...

Pitching far too High

All that I know now
I'm pitching far too high
I cannot behold
The gilted angel's robe
The guilted pierced soul
I cannot behold

And the heavens roll
And the trumpets blow
And the sun outside burns this uncertain soul

All my learning stops
Whilst trying to join the dots
That pin-prick the night
Sun streams its life through the glass
Scriptures and sermons elapse
Suddenly, I'm with you
I'm old enough now to decide
To leap out and loosen these ties
But something is grounding me
And it's something I like

And the heavens roll
And the trumpets blow
And the sun outside burns this uncertain soul

The truly wonderful Hope & Social - download this song Pitching Far Too High

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Coldplay put a smile upon his face...

Whilst the London 2012 Paralympic Closing Ceremony could be viewed as a bit old and new age what a gift Coldplay songs were for the creative team to exploit? Without their material so aptly capturing the amazing 'moment' that the games generated it would have all been a bit at the level of a expansive and dramatic variety show. It wasn't just Coldplay's music that lifted the event to a higher plane, it was their committment to the whole evening that was so laudable.

They didn't just come on and 'do' their set, they both played along with the 'superstar' guests and singer Chris Martin actually left the stage to sit amongst The British Paraorchestra for the gorgeous interpretation of Strawberry Swing. What capped it all for me was when up on the screens I spied local boy Mat Fraser, actor, drummer and Thalidomide challenged, drumming on stage with the band as per the clip above. What an incredible demonstration of their lyric 'God give me style, give me Grace'?

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