2023 -
Wow. My second year in a new land. Formed an avant-garde sex magick performance ritual band called Alumna Infractible, one performance of which involved me being buried alive onstage and the latest of which was a small opera in a wasteland pit that involved twenty fearless, talented people and a sage wand made of Khevsureti bone.
Formed an epic literary-chamber-doom project called Vantablack with Chris Kelso and Stuart Dahlquist (much more of which to come).
Formed an exhilarating improv band with some of the finest musicians in Tbilisi that plays twice a month.
Finally completed Kanda Teenage Honey, a double album that took two years to make and is deeply infused with radical politics and Georgian pagan energy, and features 20+ amazing guest musicians.
Released my two Derek Jarman short film scores on vinyl - very proud moment - one of which got played on BBC Radio Three.
Released Songs For Gay Satanists - a limited edition poetry pamphlet of polemic verse in response to getting tear-gassed at the March riots.
Issued a limited edition volume of my collected lyrics of the last ten years with a beautiful foreword by Chris Kelso.
Had my first ever and then a second exhibition of my visual art and sold a golden aardvark at auction.
Shot five music videos and wrote new horror short fiction to be published this year with more to follow.
I also cheffed at a Kazakh wedding and got paid to impersonate Werner Herzog. And I saw Oppenheimer six times at the cinema.
Gave fifty concerts and already started writing the NEXT album - I’d like to thank insomnia and the fact that Sakartvelo is so infinitely inspiring and thrilling for this fact.
The people I’ve met and meet here are amongst the most soulful, kind, generous-spirited, welcoming and radical people I’ve ever met.
The longer I spend here the greater I can feel myself shedding certain aspects of western-ness that have always sat poisonously with me. Listening is more than half of real conversation.
And I’m grateful to hear what’s being said by the remarkable, spirited people I encounter.
2024 - I’ll release my huge solo record Kanda Teenage Honey, the first Vantablack EP and at long last the Asva record we tracked before the pandemic. And a tonne of fiction and new writing. Also will finish a feature-length screenplay and write a script for a brilliant young Georgian actor who’s already been in one of my music videos. And I’m preparing new paintings for a new exhibition.
I wish you all beautiful, healthy, invigorating and peaceful paths in 2024. Fuck imperialism, fuck occupiers, fuck borders, destroy what destroys us. Love.