Hey Friend,  I hope you're well.

As a Patron you are the first to hear about this. 

I'm releasing the first single from Cave Sessions Vol. 2 tomorrow (3rd Feb) on Spotify (and other streaming platforms).

However I'm not making a big deal about it. 

Here's the story.

I normally don't release all my music on the streaming outlets as they're not really weighted in favour of independent artists.  But, I had planned a marketing campaign and a bit of a song-and-dance about it for this one.

But then I had an epiphany, a revelation of sorts... something that, for me, helped make sense of this crazy season in human history.

You see, for the last 14 years I've been making my living mainly as a singer-songwriter, worship leader, musician - mostly from live events, here in Ireland and around the world.  In fact I've just completed my tax return for 2019/20 and realised I'd clocked up around 190 gigs or events for that financial year.

Then it all stopped on 17th March 2020 (St. Patrick's Day) - pretty much everything got cancelled from then, with the exception of a handful of events.

In the midst of some prayer, pondering and hindsight I remembered the ancient Jewish agricultural practice of Shmita. 

This is about how the land is supposed to rest every 7 years so that it can continue to be fruitful into the future.

So I find myself at the end of the second 7 year cycle of life as a musician and this is the fallow year - at least in terms of live events. 

It feels like pushing too hard with the business of music is going against the flow of the tide just now. 

And that's ok. 

No need to hatch plans for musical 'world domination', just go with the flow - quietly filling the creativity tank and release songs into the wild that will find their place in due course.

Maybe, you're in a similar season? Or, perhaps you're in a different part of the cycle in what you bring to the world? 

Either way I hope you're doing well and, as ever I really appreciate your support for what I do here - Bless you!

Echoes goes live tomorrow.

Cheers - Andy

PS. I have still been doing some live streaming. Today I did this one hour worship set for a ministry organisation based in Belfast.

PPS. Let me know if you're interested and I'll tell you the story of how our income has been replaced from all the lost gigs this past year. It's connected to the Irish counties songwriting project.