‘The Debt Is a collection of music written at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Struggling to come to terms with the images of destruction and loss, I found myself improvising at the piano and trying to express something – probably a feeling of helplessness but also shock at the unexpected nature of the beginning of this war. Unexpected to many of us at least. Seeing families pulled apart, and men (normal men like me) finding themselves quickly learning how to be soldiers… the whole situation just felt like an awful dream.

Long-time collaborators, Dave Walsh and Sam Quintana join me for this album which was recorded on one sunny afternoon in Leeds. We played two takes of each tune and that was that. No real rehearsal time, just coming together to capture the feeling of the day.