Red Tide is an EP featuring tracks from a long outstanding album project, Skálá, which is an album I wrote and recorded during my visit to Iceland in July to September, 2010. I basically locked myself away in friend Svavar Knútur’s cabin/holiday house in the remote north of Iceland for the best part of three months and got to work. 

During my time in Iceland I took time to explore the magnificent yet barren country and became transformed by it's wonder; both in it's people and places. I traveled to different towns with Svavar, playing shows with him and sharing stories with some of the warmest human beings I have ever come across. 

I wrote and recorded over 16 tracks while in the cabin in Skálá (a place near the tiny town of Hafsós), however I never managed to finish recording everything and vowed to finish overdubs when I returned to Berlin that year. However, on my returning to Berlin, I found myself on tour with the Melodica Festival and it took me some time to find an apartment and become settled. I was suddenly in survival mode and had gone from one extreme (totally immersed in landscapes, isolation and creativity) to the other, where I found myself in a cold city, low on funds and low on energy. Thus, the album project came to a halt, but slowly I began to chip away with overdubs at home, finishing songs such as Red Tide, Guardians, Man Kingdom and others. After a while, I landed a job as a teacher at an international school (still there today) and found my time even more limited, but as with all great things, time is gold. So let me present you with all I can present you with right now, until the album is finished in all it's glory. And remember, Red Tide is a special collection of songs, not all of them will end up on the album and if so, you may hear them completely differently, such as Guardians, which I may re-record. 

This is now, and I always see music as a photograph, made in the moment and perfected later. But sometimes it's just nice to hear the progression towards the end result. - J.B

Red Tide was officially released on the 24th Dec 2011. You can preview/download the album now on Bandcamp. A new master of the album will be released in March 2012 and will then be available on iTunes, and folk who buy the album now will also receive a copy of the new mastered version in March. The digital EP also comes with bonus digital photographs and album artwork. 

Watch the video for 'Refuge' shot in Iceland while on tour in August 2010.

There are so many quotes about time “Time waits for no man.”, “Don’t count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count.” and so on, but one of my favourite quotes on the subject of time is “We may be through with the past, but the past isn't through with us.” by Paul Thomas Anderson. So it proves often true with artistic projects.  

Life in Reverb is my first retrospective album. A massive collection of home recordings and demos made between 1998 - 2005, starting with my first home recordings in Melbourne. I was 26, and in 1998 I began writing and recording my first solo album (Rising the Strays) on two 4-track Tascam tape machines. The first part was made on a machine I borrowed from the University I attended in 1998, the other machine was borrowed from a friend in 1999. It was just me and my Maton acoustic guitar, and my new experiences on paper.  

The past was certainly not finished with me and gradually over time, the early music I made in Melbourne slowly made its way back to me. When I put this compilation together, I didn't posses a single copy of 'Rising the Strays' or even a copy of my 2002 EP 'Songs from the Blue Parade', however Adam Dempsey did. Adam kept everything. He sent me rips of both albums and my dear friend and ex girlfriend, Sarah Corner, gave me copies of some of my other demos before I left Australia in 2010.  

I once had the attitude that no one should hear this era of my songwriting and recording career, that it was a somewhat embarrassing evolution, full of lengthy lo-fi melancholic songs that were better left on some CDRs buried under some books somewhere, to remain forever lost. I was yet to learn the art of audio production, however, back then I was more concerned with capturing the 'vibe' than the quality, and you can often hear this in the recordings...tape hiss and background noise is often present in many of the demos. However, time has a funny way of making you appreciate your roots. I am now 39 years old and this collection boasts 39 songs. That was not planned, funny that.  

It's hard to recall over 12 years of musical evolution and development. However, this is not the start of my recording work, I was fascinated with writing and recording back in Western Australia during my teenage years and early 20's and recorded my own songs using 2 tape deck machines, and I would bounce tracks together that way. But we don't have to go that far back, because my musical journey really began when I arrived in Melbourne, and this is just the first chapter. I recorded a plethora of material during my 12 years in Melbourne, both as a solo artist and with bands such as 'The Dirty Royals', while working on other projects like The boats and Glass Mountain. There is a lot of music in the vaults but not all of it needs to be heard because the recording process is often a songwriter's rite of passage.  

This retrospective album is a collection of audible photographs of a life between 1998 and 2005. A life that was discovering a new city, new friends, new love and new experiences. It was the most important part of my journey in Melbourne because it was the period where I was growing the most as a musician. After 2005, I made new choices, my life took a different turn and I became a different songwriter. But during this era (1998 - 2005) I was hungry and in love with my musical freedom. I was a dreamer and certainly a little lost, but mostly lost in discovering the unknown terrain of musical exploration. - Jona

Life in Reverb is now available on Bandcamp currently as a digital download only. The 39 track album is €17 and includes a PDF booklet of liner notes / credits, album cover and bonus photographs. 

It's been a while since I have had an official release. However, this release can not be called new, nor can it be called old, as I have put a lot of work in mastering over 30 tracks of old home recordings made during 1998 - 2005. The recordings go as far back to my first unreleased acoustic album made on 4 track machines in different homes in Melbourne during 1998 and 1999, and also includes the EP 'Songs from the Blue Parade' released in 2002, among many other demos and home recordings made up until 2005. I have come to a place as a songwriter where I feel it's important to archive my music, because even the music I was once somewhat embarassed of is still part of my evolution as an artist, and sometimes we need to put things to bed in order to move forward. 

Life In Reverb comes out in November. 

My recent show at 'Salon-Konzerte im Haus 73' was my first gig in a while, since winter in fact! I'm not so proud of that, but the fact is I'm also not so great at speaking Deutsche (yet) and this has possibly been an eliminating factor in scoring new gigs in Berlin, or maybe I'm just getting too old! haha! Who knows?

However, I always seem to be appreciated in good ol' Hamburg and really enjoy playing there. Getting to Hamburg on the weekend was the first step. When in Germany you quickly learn to travel via mitfahrgelegenheit, and the best way to do that is by car. Basically the way it works is simple, car owners place their adverts on the mitfahrgelegenheit web site and travellers wanting a ride search for one suitable for them, it's a bit like paid hitchhiking. I usually always take a lift by car, but this time I decided to join a group taking the train. However when I arrived to the main station in Berlin (Hauptbahnhof) following specific instructions...the guy wasn't there and left without me, high and dry on Saturday. I was without a lift and pretty pissed mind you, so I took a train to Ostbahnhof and bought myself a bus ticket and joined my girlfriend Dulli at 4pm who was also taking the bus. It was nice to travel together anyway, the only down side for me was that I would now have no time to relax (or eat) before I played as the bus arrived in at 7:30 and I was to sound check at 8:00pm.

Dulli and I arrived in and headed straight to the venue (Haus 73) and I discovered a full room of punters awaiting some folk action. It was a lovely evening, the weather was coolish and a young lady named Janina Dunklau (Hamburg) played some intense minor folk songs as my support. I felt a bit tired but I soon found my fire and opened with 'Spells', one of the more angst upbeat songs written in Iceland last year. It felt like a good call and then the night was away, I felt relaxed and enjoyed joking with the audience. I bashed out all the Iceland material, played 'Beautiful Bird' for Elisa (was nice to see you mate) and improvised a song with my loop pedal and alles gut. I decided to call the Hamburgers, Hamburgians "Calling people Hamburgers is just plain weird!", and a local shouted out "...and Berliners are wieners!" which was pretty funny actually. I think the song of the night was the old Woody Guthrie tune 'So long it's been good to know ya', which is a song my American friend Ian Fisher sometimes plays, and he was right, it's one hell of a crowd pleaser...the whole room was singing along! By the end of the night I received an encore, which was a lovely surprise and ended with a fierce version of 'Changing of the Hours' and then a few of us gathered for beers outside in the beer garden and spun some tales of...Hamburgians and what not.

The next morning D and I were feeling a little under the weather, but we left the band apartment and enjoyed a wonderful German breakfast at Haus 73 (those guys really are very hospitable) and then we were off to a church service where I played songs between the sermons (that I only understood 15% of and my songs were printed in the service phamflet) as I was asked by Jens (one of the organisers) if I could be the entertainment for the service.

Then it was time to head back to Berlin and Dulli and I made our way to the main station in Hamburg and had to meet our lift coordinator, as people can travel on group tickets for cheap. We met this old guy who spoke German but had a weird Eastern European accent and were given instructions (more than a few times) by these very strange men (who seemed like mentally challenged train spotters) to catch the Berlin train (a different train, and not ours) on the other platform. Then we were shuffled onto our train and had to sit in the entrance compartment as all the seats were taken. This is especially difficult with a guitar. The trip was not so fun back and it took almost 5 hours and was raining all the way. No pain no gain I suppose.

However, I am glad I played this show and I want to thank Thore and the guys involved in the Hamburg Project and Haus 73 for booking me. The fact is, I have not had an easy time settling into Berlin. The first 7 months were spent applying for jobs only to be rejected because I did not have a VISA (catch 22 really, considering you need a job to get the VISA!) and I lived in an empty apartment through a gruelling winter, living on the bones and relying on my family (who have been incredible) for support, and taking whatever cash paid work I could find. One of the blessings in my life during this time has been my girlfriend Dulli, who I met in November last year and has been an angel to me through some very difficult times. I made the video 'Im a Leopard' for her last Christmas.

I came to a crossroads recently and had to make a decision on whether to stay in Berlin or return home to Australia (and have been very homesick for a while now). I was recently offered a wonderful full time teaching job, teaching English at a bilingual Gymnasium school (the best schools in the country for children of academic grades). I emailed some friends back home to try and get some advice as to what to do, and they all told me to taken the job! Even Nick from the boats! I was expecting them to tell me to come home, but I guess they see this as a good experience as I do. And I'm sure it will be, I'll even be starting a school band with some of the kids! So, I'll be in Germany a while longer it seems, and I look forward to the next part of my journey.

Bless

Jb x

A big thank you goes out to my dear friend Jonas Dahl, who put a lot of work into this documentary before he left for Denmark early this year. 

Part 2 of the documentary follows Mijo Biscan, Jonas Dahl, Renny Field, Mari Mana, Jona Byron, Our Blanket Skies (Matthias Brasch) and our tour manager Magdalena Von Saleski on a 6 day tour of east Germany. We played shows in Potsdam, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Jena, Erfurt and finished with our final show back in Berlin. It was an adventurous, humorous and exhausting time, but not to be forgotten.

Rose Lerchbacher 1985 - 2010

This weekend gone was the one year anniversary of my dear friend Rose Lerchbacher, who died precisely one year ago, 22nd April 2010. 

It seems like yesterday when I wrote a short entry after her death, and a year later I write this from my apartment in Berlin after having spent a year in Europe. How quickly time passes, but how slowly the wounds take to heal. But heal we must, as all loss manifests our inner power to overcome such grief. 

I met Rose in 2007 while I was touring throughout Hobart playing shows and taking field trips to the gorgeous old growth forest. She was a pretty, quiet, shy girl but we got along right away and she purchased an old EP and made contact with me online a while later. I visited Hobart a couple more times after the first tour, but most of my communication with Rose was chat time over the internet as I just didn't get the chance to visit enough. However, we would talk long into the night about life, the universe and almost everything. We would also sometimes talk of each other's battles with depression, confiding in each other when days were dark or one's strength was frayed. I was always very sensitive with her as she was a very sensitive soul, and I always tried desperately to lift her spirits when she was down. Quite often it worked, but sometimes she would just disappear and I would not hear from her for days. Rose struggled, like all of us. She had her good days, and her bad days, however, unlike some people, her bad days were really bad, and these were the times when life seemed unbearable. But she had her cathartic releases..she played the piano and loved embroidery and was a quiet Seamstress; something that she found solace in "Mostly I like to pour all the frustration, loneliness and sorrow into making something pretty, that I know someone will one day wear and feel beautiful in." she said once.   

When Rose took her life, it shook the foundations of everyone who loved her. Her suicide made me sad, angry, confused and it also made me feel like I had failed her somehow, after all the hours I had spent chatting with her about hope and the beauty within life, that she often was not able to see. A year later, I see that it was exactly this, she was not 'able' to see the hope for a prolonged period of time, and that the choice she made was made during the suffering of great despondency. Only one who has suffered from a depressive illness (or a close friend or family member) can ever understand the desolation that is often associated with such a condition. Other external factors may have also contributed to my friend's young death; pressures, social stress, medication, but these are not for me to judge as I was not there, however much I wish I was. If these experiences teach us anything, it's to treat mortality with a sense of compassion and appreciate the precious moments we truly have. Rose would not have wanted people to be bitter, carry guilt or pass blame I believe, she was soft and abundantly considerate and as much as some people annoyed her, she never wished malice upon others, but rather peace. 

I personally derived some of my own lessons from Rose's death and went on a kind of a soul seeking, healing journey in Iceland last year, where I locked myself away for some time in a friend's cabin in the remote north of Iceland and got into some staring competitions with my own stubborn demons, tended to some long term wounds (still do), met some trolls and got in touch with my inner fisherman and my mountain trekking, song writing, self loathing, spiritual side. 

It made me think of my own destructive thoughts that come knocking at times and where they came from, and the choices we all have in regards to such notions. Being an artist and someone who also experiences the howl of the black dog (like in my song 'Howl'), I have also had moments of such bleak self doubt in my life that I thought it easier to check out. But if I have learned anything, it's that life has a way of surprising me, especially when it seems all is hopeless…there is always, somehow, something miraculous up ahead. As brutal as life seems at times, it's no match for the agonising beauty that is life's journey. Without the sour, the sweet just wouldn't be as sweet, it's been said before but it's true. We all have a choice, and for me, when all turns black, it's time to let go of the instinct to give up and time to find something else to live for. I've had to think 'through' the fog of depression, and learn that destructive thought patterns are a lie, and they are not the sum of our potential but the direct opposite. We can be anything and do anything, especially if we're different, because it's the human spirit and our wonderful imperfections that we should embrace and not society's icons plastered all over the media. Rose had a beautiful depth about her and she shared in my cynicism of mainstream society and superficiality. Her loss was so great to me because she was someone of great substance of character, deeply sensitive, humorous and obtained a vivid imagination.

I think in a way, we were both dreamers and often spoke in phantasmagorical sentences...

Jona

There's a star out there for each of us

11:27pm

Rose

really? i wonder which one's mine....

11:27pm

Jona

One human per planet...I'll look

11:28pm

Rose

hehee

It'd probably be one of the smaller, less shiny ones... but more constantly burning

11:29pm

Jona

There's a really bright one not far from the Orions belt...well prob like a 'long way' but it suits you :)

11:29pm

Rose

hmm... sounds pretty

11:29pm

Jona

From now on I'll call it Lerchbacher star

11:30pm

I wanted Rose to stay, so did all who loved her, I wanted to know her better but in the brief time I did know her she touched me deeply. However, Rose chose to leave, maybe for a better world, maybe for a really bright star that she thought she could never embody as a person. 

In the last year during our chats I played her much of my music as she was a great soundboard, always giving me feedback. Her favourite song of mine was 'Howl' which for some reason touched her deeply and she found it disturbing that it was intended to be a b-side. She made me look at the song closer and it is now to be included on the forthcoming overdue album 'Bovine' (Melbourne recordings from 2005 - 2010). She once said "Your music resonates a great sadness and poignancy which so much commercial crap is missing; I wonder if this is why I find it so oddly beautiful?"

She also told me to never stop making music. At times I find this hard to do, because life is so demanding and time always seems to be against me, especially in Europe. But then I came across another thing she said in one our our chats…

"Never stop dreaming... you have a beautiful imagination and that is such a rare thing to find these days."

I miss you my dear, but I'm glad we had our long talks, I learned a lot about what it is to be human. May we never forget. Love, always. jb x

 Below you can listen to some of Rose's favourite tracks I was working on, as a preview to the forth coming album 'Bovine' and a tribute to her.  

Howl by Jona Byron

I Am The Moon by Jona Byron

I also decided to put my song 'Levitate' on Bandcamp as a free download. You can find that here. 

Union Song is a song I wrote for a married couple and friends I have know for over 10 years now. My old friend and lapsteel guitarist Joel Bloom and I played at their wedding exactly 10 years ago and Yvette asked me to write a song for their 10 year anniversary, and she sent me a poem she had written and from that poem I shaped this song. It's probably the happiest song I've ever written and I'm glad I could give this gift. A big thanks to Katharina Gade for her beautiful backing vocals also, the idea of the song as a duet makes sense in it's context. - jb x

Union Song

This is a union song for a human love 
This is a union song for a human love 
Their toes were bare and open 
Nails painted gold 
Leather hand plaited 
Rose beads and bells

Dove cottage lavender 
Mother’s roses bloom 
Woven in strawberry leaves 
The bouquet is complete

Turquoise for the guys 
For the ladies tigers eye 
Father's watch made grand 
With a new plated band

The heavens did smile 
A beautiful glow 
Hovering birds fly home 
And when one leads the other 
They know to follow 
And you shall lead each other and each other shall be your soul

To and fro

There is an ancient blessing 
You were kindred from the start 
There is a union setting to map the human heart

This is a union song for a human love

And you shall lead each other and each other shall be your soul

Written by Jona Byron and Yvette Brindle.

I can proudly say I have started co-producing Berlin band 'The Major Pins' debut album with the band's very talented front lady, Katharina Gade. Kat brought me into the project to help piece together the post production of the album in regards to it's direction, mixes and structure. It's a big, powerful and diverse alternative pop/rock album that has been in production for just over a year and requires some special attention and care and it's a pleasure to be working with Kat and the band as we discover exciting sounds and ideas together. It's going to be an amazing record! Imagine PJ Harvey meets Arcade Fire! Stay tuned... jb x

Check out The Major Pins web site. 

Jona & Kat in studio, Berlin