David Lewis
Quite apart from being an exemplary and outstanding
member of the human race with a powerful brain and a beautiful mind, David is also an accomplished singer and
guitarist. He owns one of the most wonderful acoustic guitars I've ever
seen. When I play live that's the guitar I play. And when I
record albums that's the guitar I play. Since don't do anything other
than playing live and recording this means that David and I traded
guitars months ago. Hardly an equitable arrangement since I get
to play the Excalibur of guitars and David gets to play on a round
block of wood with strings. David also promotes live shows and talks
people
into listening to the music. As a consequence of my infinite moral
indebtedness,
I am filled with self-loathing. But I've never sounded so good.
"Wow, that's brilliant - you must be
creatively exhausted. Which is a kind of exhausted that involves being
creative, so perhaps you should be slouched over a giant talking tomato
whilst reciting haikus."
And this is what David looks like when he's standing in a suspiciously green field:
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Bimbi Urquhart
Viola superstar
This is as good as a viola will ever sound
in the context of pop/rock/folk music. Bimbi is not only an
astonishingly gifted viola player, but deeply musical and incredibly
open-minded about expanding her musical horizons. She also happens to
be awesome to work with and I can't wait to do it again soon.
Bimbi has played with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra, and she will be performing the William Walton Viola Concerto in 2011.
Obviously, she has also recorded a CD (out soon) and been on tour with the UK's leading tango
ensemble.
And this is what Bimbi looks like between back to back recording sessions:
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Simon Charlton
Simon Charlton and I met at Oxford in 2001, where we shared meals, a
piano and a pool table with the likes of Anamitra Deb and Cosmo Wallace.
As Simon is one
of the most modest people in the world, it took me one year to find out
that he writes poetry and song lyrics, and one year and five minutes to
find out that he happens to be a genius at it.
If you heard the songs "Obituary Mambo" or "And Now I Understand Transformation" from previous albums, you know already that I'm not exaggerating, and the new album "The Truth Of All Love" underlines that claim unequivocally.
Simon has written more deep, emotionally
profound song lyrics than even the greatest
lyricists have written in their entire life.
And this is what Simon's back looks like (and for the record, he does have a pretty face too):
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Cosmo Wallace
My wonderful friends Cosmo, Anamitra Deb, Simon Charlton (devotees will recognise these names as contributors of lyrics and other things to dozens of albums in the past) and I lived together at Oxford.
Cosmo and I both decided to pursue creative paths as a result of which both of us are dangerously malnourished, but happy at the same time.
Nowadays, Cosmo shoots things. In a cinematographic, directing kind of way. He also writes and directs sceenplays. He does lots of other stuff too but I'm fairly sure I'll use the wrong technical terms so I'll simply point you to his website.
Apart from that, Cosmo and I "do" a variety of creative things together, although most of the time, it would be more accurate to say that Cosmo does creative things for me. His recent contributions to nudging me in a more sensible direction include shooting the Time music video and creating artwork for the last album "The Truth Of All Love", which you will agree looks spectacular.
And this is what Cosmo looks like when he's about to shoot a music video having already worked 48 hours in a row on a different shoot:
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