Stay in touch

Good things.
Occasionally.

New music, live shows, podcast discoveries and the occasional ticket offer. A few words from me when there’s something worth sharing.

Scores, themes & songs

My Friend Maisy

We Can Do Anything and title theme. Other series music by Tom Haines. Watch and listen.

Cold Call

Score for the Channel 5 drama (2019).

Pistol

Additional music for Danny Boyle’s series (2022).

Extreme Diet Hotel

Music for the Channel 4 series (2018).

Advertising

Work for clients including Bird’s Eye, Ambrosia and the National Lottery. For the Lottery’s 25th anniversary advert, I arranged, recorded and produced the brass and drum parts.

Production music

Soul, jazz and afrobeat-influenced tracks for Felt, alongside other production music. Listen and find licensing details.

Nosferatu

An entirely live, improvised score at ALSO Festival (2025), with no loops or prerecorded samples. Watch the performance.

Autistic Joy

Score and sound for Maddi Crease’s film (2024).

First Impressions

An original score using sounds recorded in Margate, for Theatre Royal Margate (2010).

Songs and comedy

Annabelle’s Skirtingboard Adventure with Howard Read, The Santa Claus Science Experiment, and two songs developed for Songs for the Hall at Wilton’s Music Hall and Snape Maltings (2020). The planned production was cancelled during the pandemic.

Podcasts

Music for projects with Lulu Popplewell and Alexander Bennett, and for Born Yesterday.

Playing & recording credits

I’ve played or recorded with artists including Kelis, Sam Smith, Paul Epworth, John Paul Jones, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, The Cure, Paloma Faith, Jamie Cullum, Baaba Maal, Roni Size, Jarvis Cocker, Kojey Radical, Bugge Wesseltoft, Angélique Kidjo, Mulatu Astatke, Last Skeptik, Billy Bragg, Charlotte Church, Azekel, Eliza Doolittle, Eric Idle, Redlight and Jim Bob. Some of those projects also involved arranging.

Hackney Colliery Band

Band leader, trumpet, composing, arranging and co-production. Albums include Common Decency, Sharpener, LIVE and both volumes of Collaborations.

Jim Moray

Layered cornet, flugel, tenor horn and baritone for Spencer the Rover. Watch the official video.

Theatre

The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare’s Globe (2025), Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre (2022), and West End and touring work including Elvis.

Acoustic instruments & electronics

Trumpet with delays, harmonisers, sampling and live processing, including my collaboration with Harriet Mackenzie and performances with Hackney Colliery Band.

Hear some examples

Musical direction & arranging

For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music

Arranging, playing and leading the end-credit band, alongside music consultancy and mixing for the Cosmic Shambles documentary series. Explore the series.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Musical director, orchestrator and performer for Sean Holmes’s Shakespeare’s Globe production (2019 and 2021), with music by Jim Fortune.

Robin Ince & Brian Cox

Musical direction and arrangements for live shows, including Hammersmith Apollo and Space Shambles at the Royal Albert Hall (2018). Performances have included Robert Smith and Brian Cox on The Lovecats, Eric Idle on Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, and Chris Hadfield on Space Oddity.

Arrangements for artists

Work with Billy Bragg, Sam Smith, Roni Size, Scroobius Pip, Jim Bob and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, among others.

Hackney Colliery Band

Arrangements and commissions including Sky Arts, BBC Four, the Imperial War Museum and the London 2012 closing ceremony.

Roundhouse

Musical direction and co-arranging for Puffball (2014), and work on On Mass with Jamie Cullum and Tim Exile (2015) and Angélique Kidjo (2017).

Bollywood Brass Band

100 Years of Bollywood (2013–2015).

Theatre & comedy

Music and sound for The Santa Claus Science Experiment (2013–2014); co-created Annabelle’s Skirtingboard Adventure with Howard Read (2015, touring until 2017); work on Victoria Melody’s Ugly Chief (2017).

Workshops, teaching & education

World Music Big Band

Musical director since 2024. A workshop band with players of different experience levels and a professional rhythm section, performing at the Vortex. Meet the band.

University teaching

Undergraduate trumpet and improvisation at Goldsmiths and Brunel; arranging and music technology for master’s students at London College of Music (2025).

Workshops & masterclasses

Projects with the Roundhouse, Royal Opera House, Nottingham Trent University and Hackney Empire, and a masterclass with the Household Cavalry.

Collaborative projects

Artist in residence at ACS Cobham (2014), and work with an unauditioned collaborative band for Oslo’s Mela Festival (2012–2014).

Production, recording & mixing

Spanner Big Band

A Load of Old Toot!! (2024): production, mixing and mastering. Listen to the album.

Bollywood Brass Band & Jyotsna Srikanth

Carnatic Connection (2016) and A Day in Bangalore (2018): production and mixing. Carnatic Connection was nominated for Best Group at the 2017 Songlines Music Awards and included in Songlines’ 2020 selection of 50 greatest world-music albums of the previous five years.

Hackney Colliery Band

Co-production on Common Decency, Sharpener, LIVE and Collaborations: Volume One and Volume Two; mixing on selected Collaborations tracks.

Ubermanoeuvre

Loud Music for Awesome People (2020): production and mixing.

Oompah Brass

Christmas EP (2018): recording, production, mixing and mastering.

Moir

Up Without a Down (2017): production through the Roundhouse mentoring programme.

Film, speech & podcasts

Mixing for the feature documentary Rapid Motion; music consultancy and mixing for For the Record; podcast and spoken-word work including Answer Me This! and Lulu Popplewell, alongside podcast production for the World Bank.

Other recording work

Music education resources for Warwick Music; recordings with Little Woolly Vision; comedy videos and work for Ergon Associates.

Mastering

Projects include Ziyah’s Tales of Ordinary Madness (2020) and Oompah Brass’s Christmas EP (2018).

Inside the studio

My Hackney studio is where I record, arrange, mix, experiment and film. It’s set up for remote sessions as well as working together in the room.

Monitoring

Genelec The Ones and subwoofer, a 7.1.4 monitoring setup, Avantone MixCubes and other speakers for checking how a mix translates.

Microphones

Coles 4038, Townsend Labs Sphere, DPA, Shure, Oktava, Avantone and sE microphones, plus contact and underwater microphones.

Preamps & outboard

Neve Portico II, Thermionic Culture Rooster, SSL SiX, Eventide H9000, Tegeler Crème and Schwerkraftmaschine. Focusrite RED/RedNet and Universal Audio interfaces.

Recording & editing

Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton Live and LUNA, with tools including RX and Melodyne. Dorico and Sibelius for scores, and Premiere for video.

Acoustic instruments

Fender Rhodes 54, upright piano, trumpets, flugel, cornet, tenor and baritone horns, trombone, drums, hand percussion, cajon, whistles, pipes, chromatic shruti box, cimbalom and conch shells.

Synths & controllers

Moog Matriarch, Expressive E Osmose, Arturia PolyBrute, OP-1, Organelle, Folktek Resonant Garden, SOMA Pipe, DrumBrute Impact, Ableton Move, Ableton Push 3 Standalone and Roland V-Drums.

Processing & other possibilities

Eventide H9000 and H9, SOMA Cosmos, Beetlecrab Tempera, Torso S-4, Replicator tape delay, Vermona Retroverb Lancet, Landscape Stereo Field and Boss SY-300, alongside software instruments and effects.

Filming

Cameras and lighting for podcast conversations, performances and demonstrations, with audio recording and video editing in the same workspace.

If a project depends on a particular instrument, format or setup, drop me a line and we can check the details together.

Live shows & other experiments

On the Origin of the Pieces

An Arts Council England-supported solo show at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2019 grew into the podcast in 2023 and regular live shows with guests. Explore the episodes.

Universe of Music

Music and astronomy with Professor Chris Lintott, including Cheltenham Science Festival. Watch and find out more.

Soundbox

My duo with harpist Valeria Clarke, exploring acoustic instruments, electronics and improvisation. Watch the performances.

Music & astronomy

Work with Chris Lintott for Gresham College, and with Matt Russo on music inspired by a planet 600 light years away.

A rather unusual Christmas record

Made for Robin Ince’s 24-hour Christmas show in 2020, using sounds contributed by the show and its audience. Listen to One Lesson and Carol.

Brass for Africa

A remote collaboration involving Mustardseed School in Kampala, Magdalen College School and Hackney Colliery Band (2021).

Comedy & solo shows

Two hour-long Edinburgh solo shows and appearances at the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society and Distraction Club.

Extremely impressive qualifications

A few certificates I have kept

Step 1 piano. Grade 4 flugelhorn. BAGA level 3. Amersham Scout Quest more than three times. I do have actual qualifications too, but these seemed worth keeping.

A show for musically curious people

On the Origin of the Pieces

What makes a sound become music? Why can a few notes make us dance, cry or remember something we thought we’d forgotten? On the Origin of the Pieces is a podcast and live show for anyone who has ever listened to music and wanted to know a little more about what’s going on.

On stage, I bring live playing, conversation and sound experiments together, following ideas with musicians, scientists and other curious people. An unfamiliar instrument, an everyday noise or a question from the audience can send us somewhere unexpected. You don’t need to read music or know the terminology.

A live show at Wilton’s Music Hall. Watch on YouTube.

Keep listening

The podcast follows the same curiosity between shows, with conversations, listening experiments and music from unexpected places. Here are the latest episodes.

Explore all episodes · Listen on Spotify

Hosting, interviews & conversations

Making On the Origin of the Pieces means talking with musicians, scientists and people whose work touches music in all sorts of ways. I’m interested in how they listen, what they notice and the questions that keep them going. I like conversations that make room for detail without leaving the audience behind.

In 2026 I hosted two stages at First Light Festival, from conversations with scientists, academics and musicians on the Interstellar Ideas stage to live music in the church. Whether I’m interviewing a guest or keeping a full programme moving, my job is to put people at ease and bring the audience with us.

If you’re putting together a festival session, artist conversation or live music programme, I’d be happy to talk about hosting it.

Hear me in conversation with guests →

Music for the whole evening

I also work behind the scenes as a musical director and arranger. That has included Robin Ince and Brian Cox’s live shows, Space Shambles at the Royal Albert Hall, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe.

For For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music, I arranged, played in and led the band for the performances that close each episode. Here’s Charlotte Carpenter joining us for Friday I’m in Love.

So if the brief involves guests, a band, a succession of very different musical ideas and somebody keeping track of it all, that’s familiar territory.

Full credits and earlier work →

Hackney Colliery Band

I lead this band, bringing brass and drums into contact with rock, jazz, electronica and soul. My work with the band includes playing, composing, arranging and co-producing.

It has taken us from clubs to festival stages and a sold-out Barbican Hall, with collaborators including Mulatu Astatke and Angélique Kidjo.

Visit the band’s website for music, dates and booking →

Shellectronica

Shellectronica traces a line from ancient instruments to modern ears. I use conch shells, live processing and sampling to explore the continuum between the sounds people made thousands of years ago and the music we make now. Playing these extraordinary objects is a way of reconnecting with that past, and hearing what it might offer the present.

Sometimes the result is an extended ambient performance: a ‘conch bath’, if you will. Sometimes it takes a rather different turn.

An hour-long live performance commissioned by ALSO Festival. Watch on YouTube.

Explore Shellectronica →

On the Origin of the Pieces

A podcast and live show for musically curious people. Conversations with musicians, scientists and other people who think deeply about sound, alongside unfamiliar instruments, listening experiments and music made from unlikely things.

Latest from the podcast

Listen to the podcast → · Explore the live show →

Violin · trumpet · live electronics

With Harriet Mackenzie

My ongoing collaboration with violinist Harriet Mackenzie brings acoustic playing and live electronics together. We move between new music and familiar pieces heard from a different angle, including our version of The Lark Ascending and my piece Slack Tide.

Watch Slack Tide

Bringing people together

Musical direction and arranging run through much of this work. I’ve led music for Robin Ince and Brian Cox’s shows, worked at Shakespeare’s Globe and the Roundhouse, and directed the World Music Big Band at the Vortex.

Full credits and earlier work →