Escape is a step into my relatively recent past and potentially a window into my future. When I began recording electronic music circa 2017/2018, I was undergoing treatment for depression and anxiety. I’d reached a stage where going anywhere outside had become uncomfortable to impossible. As I attended gigs and events on a regular basis, which was the only social interactions I had with anybody outside of the internet, it was a bit of a problem. The paranoia (why is everybody watching me? Am I standing in somebody’s way? Does anybody actually care that I’m here or do they just put up with the auld git that turns up all the time?) and panic it would cause made it impossible for me to continue. I couldn’t actually tell you how many gigs I left early or, if I managed to stay to the end, (I always tried to stay as long as I could when friends were playing) I would almost run out of the venue as soon as the last note was played. Eventually it got too much for me and I stopped going for about a year. I eventually made it back, proving the drugs do work, sometimes, and life got back to normal’ish. Then, weeks before I was due to play my first live show – you guessed it – Covid-19 arrived. At the time of writing, we’re about to be allowed back out into the world. Good news. Except those feelings have started to return. At the moment I’m just about coping, managing to repress the worst of the feelings and fingers crossed I’ll be back at a gig near you (if you live in Glasgow of course).
Escape is my attempt to capture those feelings of paranoia, the panic attacks and breathlessness, the involuntary sweating and twitches. Until I escape to the outside world and the knowledge I’l be home soon, and I can lock the door and the world behind me.