‘Seasonal affective disorder is a mood disorder subset in which people who typically have normal mental health throughout most of the year exhibit depressive symptoms at the same time each year’ 

January is a brutal, deceptive month for Englanders. With the gentle threat of those idealistic new year’s resolutions hanging over you like an unwanted monkey on your back, the taxman rattling his hungry coffers & the British rain pummelling down relentlessly, it’s more than understanding why people detest it so much. This year, I decided to not have any resolutions other than hibernate in my studio, the Wolf Cabin. After about 4 weeks of scribbling, jumping from piano to guitar to whatever and babbling like a madman into the recording app on my phone, I emerged into the more forgiving month of February 2025 with this record, Orphic. I decided to focus much more on various guitars, it is my second instrument after the old Joanna & experiment with tunings etc. I watched a video where Pat Metheny mentioned he writes all his guitar pieces on the piano, which inspired me to constantly jump between the two. The title is a word that I’ve been obsessed with since seeing the film Orphee, by Jean Cocteau ; it just took me somewhere else and stayed in my psyche for ages, in the way that any David Lynch or Metropolis or Down By Law or A Matter of Life & Death do – the meaning of Orphic is ‘beyond otherworldly understanding’ ‘mysterious / secret / esoteric’ ; I feel writing songs is very much like this, at the beginning of January I had no idea what I was going to write but it happened & the songs emerged like a runaway train bursting out of the darkness. 

There’s kind of an open air campfire in the desert to the 2 opening tracks – I think they sort of ease you into the album, then it starts to take a few little left turns – ‘A Ghost Walked Through Me’ was inspired by my dear late friend Dave Rosser, the guitarist extraordinaire of The Afghan Whigs. I really feel like he’s watching over me sometimes, it’s an odd uncanny emotion that I can’t shake off and don’t really want to. ‘O Gentle Death’ is the oldest track on the record, written for a ghost story film score that seems like it’ll never get made, but I felt like it fits with the seasonal gothic folk of the first half ; and then there’s the triptych of tracks 5/6/7 – the core of Orphic in a way – I think this is where it gets pretty personal and ruminative! After that, it’s an open book and ‘The Low Spirits’ is a gentle slap in the face, basically saying, LOOK! It’s Spring! get out of the goddamn armchair and smell the flowers motherfucker! Featuring my wonderful better half Gita, supremely making her violin weep. Our dear Marianne Faithfull left this world as I was writing it & had to make an appearance – she always called me the ‘wicked’ Ed Harcourt so it was about time to set that in stone. Continuing with the loss of people that we’ve loved and admired , In the Embers of A Dying Flame is a paean to David Lynch, with refs to owls and sycamore trees & then Baby’s Gone To Seed is my ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON USA’ track – we really are in some serious Roman times right now….and then we end on ‘Patron Saint of Restless Dreamers’  – the last song I wrote, down in Sussex at my parents whilst looking after my dad who had been ill – it’s a simple little story and the first time I’ve ever played slide guitar on a cigar box geeeetar no less..! 

I hope you enjoy this seasonal sounding opus – it really came out of nowhere fast, it was like catching lightning in that bottle and I feel that’s the only way it should always be.