Spearing Fish

It was during 1982 that I first met David Bickley. He had formed a jazz-funk unit called Klat Pans Tac which included the guitarist Steve Edwards who I had worked with in the Unusual Tree Arrangement collective, and it was he who invited me to a session with David's band. I continued to write and record with David during my time with Sheep In Fog and we also gigged together with Dolphin Lust. Another Dolphin Lust member, Andy Sliwa, also joined us at the end of the year to play in the New Rays of Radiance band.

In the early part of 1983 I did a number of recording sessions with David, producing music to accompany an exhibition of photographic images of the island of Malta, that were publicly displayed at the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, London in March. I also contributed to the sound-track of a video that David wrote and produced, The Rite of Rain, which won a Sony Award when shown at the National Film Theatre at London's South Bank Centre in October 1983.

In 1984 I did (an intended) one-off gig with David Bickley, Erik Moore and Simon Godfrey as Spearing Fish. We spent two months working on a short 'EP length' set, featuring David and Erik's interplay (synths/clarinet and electric guitar), dancing over a repetitive, looping rhythm section, with myself on rhythm guitar and Simon's percussion, mixed in with drum machine and bassline patterns. Strangely tribal and more than a little trancy and laid back, it was based on one of David's artistic concepts - "this should only be heard once and not repeated".

David later moved to south-east London and with Simon Godfrey, started the Synchroma studio and music library for the film and advertising industry. At the end of 1984 I moved from Hampshire to West Cornwall.