I’m 22 years old and currently working as a musician, producer and voluntary festival manager for this years Oxjam in Sheffield. It’s been just over a year since I moved to Sheffield and it’s wonderful to live in this city, because throughout my life Sheffield remained a place I’d return to for visits to festivals, gigs and the sadly now closed book shop Rare and Racy. Having always been attracted to it’s flourishing music scene, Sheffield is where I hope to finally settle.
Musically, I’ve mainly worked as a sound engineer and producer. However, I’ve always been writing music in the background. This is why creating my debut album ‘Stories of the Screens’ was so enjoyable, as it meant I could dedicate time to ideas that would otherwise remain unfinished, amid being active in production roles for the work of others.
Writing about my experience of a congenital disability Klippel-Feil syndrome (KFS), for the song ‘Postures of a Dream’ and then to make the piece of music public, was also very rewarding. For the reason that upon discovering my disability during my teens, I was unconfident sharing details about it with others- a result of the still evident negative attitudes towards disability. Often having to endure people both making assumptions or being awkward around me. I question this with humor in the songs lyric: ‘Your awareness seems to show contempt, why is that!?’. These aspects of songwriting excite me, as it gives me a way of challenging my own way of thinking, as well as those around me.
My approach to writing about KFS in ‘Postures of a Dream’, was that it wouldn’t be about the disability itself, but embracing my experience with it. Always bearing in mind that like most disabilities, symptoms can differ from patient to patient and living with a disability differs from person to person. KFS is characterized by the fusion of two or more vertebrae in the neck, a common symptom being physical pain on a daily basis. I’m lucky in a sense that I don’t suffer from physical pain like most living with KFS, but have to be cautious in my day to day activities none the less. Which I explain in the song ‘No pain do I feel, just structure as a symptom.’ It has been a joy to write about my experience with KFS.