This entire album was written and recorded in the month of February 2025, as part of the February Album Writing Month challenge. The official challenge is to write and record 14 songs in 28 days. I was in some kind of creative fever dream and songs were pouring out of me like crazy, so that I finished 14 songs in 24 days and then as I lay exhausted a few days later, on the 27th day... a 15th song just came out and took me by surprise.
I had an agenda at the beginning, but it went out of the window by the end of song 3..
So, the agenda was to try to make a really folky album, because I really would love to become part of the folk scene, which I love, and play at folk festivals and all that folkin' jazz..but because a lot of my music is contemporary folk fusion with either indie or pop, I haven't had much success getting my foot in the door! So, as I say.. I thought, "hey! Let's make a super trad-folky album, so they'll have to let me in!"
It kind of stuck for 3 songs but then I felt like I was trying to force the creative flow to fit a box, and I didn't want to do that - I wanted to write and produce more naturally..
Thus, you can hear from song number 4 "Unconditional" that I am definitely and defiantly getting back to fusing all sorts of styles together. Although there's still a foundation of folkiness about the songs after this point, they are definitely more genre blending.

Rewind: Backstory..

During January, I was offered a great place to stay as a lodger and petsitter after a brush with homelessness and ending up living on a boat during the summer of 2024. The album is named after the road in which I was welcomed by wonderful folks who not only restored my faith in humanity, but tolerated my incessant music making with SUCH amazing grace and fortitude it makes me cry to think about it! How I didn't get slapped up for forcing them to listen to my new song after a long day at work each day for an entire month is a miracle. I am so thankful for their patience and forbearance!
Living here for a while gave me so much inspiration, but more importantly it provided a safe and settled place for me to rest my weary feet. Without the worry of "where do I go next" taking over my entire mind, I was free to truly let myself go to the creative flow. This album will always be so special to me because of what it represents... that safe & nurturing place from which the songs could be born.

Musically speaking, my plan was to create a REALLY folky sounding album, and to be completely honest my motivation for this was to get onto the folk scene more, because I would LOVE to play some folk clubs and festivals. I genuinely love the folk scene, and folk songwriting is fascinating to me. So intelligent and poetic...
Anyway..
So the first 3 songs sound pretty darn folky.. I tried so hard! And I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong.
But then it started to feel a bit forced and against my usual grain of just creating what I feel like creating. Up until now my songs haven't really sat firmly and exclusively in one genre. I like to just let songs be what they want to be.
So I thought, ya know what? I am going to let go of the plan, and go with the flow.
That's when all sorts of magic started happening!
Sometimes quirky, sometimes beautiful, sometimes weird. Light and dark are both represented in this collection of songs. Light heart, heavy heart and through every state of mind.
Listening back through them, I have discovered much about myself. It's quite sobering to realise that I have spent my entire life crying for the moon. That when real relationships present themselves I shy away and sabotage them, because it is safer to fall in love with people and places that are out of reach and out of my league. Because then there's no danger of a real emotional connection, and therefore no danger of getting hurt.
It's sobering to realise that I will idealise someone and put them on a pedestal and silently worship them with no hope of reciprocation, in preference to something real and true.
I have no idea what that says about me, as a human being and as an artist. I always thought I was quite emotionally mature but now I am not so sure.
Perhaps that's a theme to explore in my next album!
I feel like I am oversharing again... damn!

TL:DR - I was going for strictly traditional folky, but felt a bit stifled & allowed the creative flow and the moment to dictate the process, with beautifully random yet still kind of folky results!