Nostalgia
A Cuckoo began a musical career when he witnessed the Everly brothers reunite after their legendary 10 year split. As a very young lad, his encouraging parents took him to see the brothers and the day after, he demanded an acoustic guitar. By the age of 11, A Cuckoo was gigging with his brother Pete (Subcircus) and so began his career in music.
Throughout his teenage years A Cuckoo joined numerous British Indie bands as a lead guitarist/backing singer and enjoyed a taste of Touring. He had a spell with the respected Bristol art rock collective ?the Blue Aeroplanes? who were Michael Stipes current favourites, and also a brief spell with ?the House of Love? who also had a faithful following. At the ripe old age of 17, A Cuckoo had the privilege of gigging all over the world and playing some of Europe?s leading festivals including the main stages at Glastonbury (UK) and Roskilde (Denmark)
? I never forget when we finished our set at Roskilde and I went to watch Faith no more in the side of the stage VIP area. Sitting right next to me was none other than Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love who was then heavily pregnant! What a buzz!! Chris what?s-his-face tall bass player fella came into our dressing room to borrow a beer or three. It was quite an introduction into the world of Rock n Roll ?
During his time with these various alternative Brit bands A Cuckoo experienced the world of recording and this is where his musical career began to take a shift.
? When I first went into a big studio it felt immediately like home. It was like going back into my ma?s womb. I did a fair bit of session work in my teens and I always wanted to push the producers and engineers aside and create my own music. I did enjoy gigging but I knew that I was destined to create.?
In his early 20s A Cuckoo started to create and produce his own music. He also started to compose music for television and film. This is when the seed was planted for Destination Unknown.
? I had an opportunity to do some high end composition work for the BBC. It was something I always wanted to try and as it turned out.. I ended up doing it almost full time. It was such a good learning curve for what I eventually wanted to do. I learnt how to orchestrate and how paint sonic pictures?
And so.. Then began the birth of Destination Unknown. A Cuckoo was intent on merging the two musical tools together that he had acquired to create a sonic vision. He put some of the rough ideas that he was developing up on MySpace and the response was more than encouraging. The page quickly began to gather a list of complimentary comments and was visited by none other than Erin from ?A Girl called Eddy? who asked A Cuckoo what the situation was with the release of his material.
? ?I hummm.. They?re only rough snippets!? I said. Erin was so encouraging and she put me in touch with Matthew Jacobson from Le Grand Magistery records. He insisted that I finish this album so he could release it.
It?s taken me a little longer than anticipated but I?m so happy that I?ve finally got to release all of these various emotions. I had a vision for this album. It?s been brewing up inside of me for a long time and now I can set these stories free. I wanted it to be an entire journey through the past couple of years of my life. ?
The result is ?Destination Unknown?. A magical and dusty esoteric mix of styles that seems to effortlessly project a work of humble yet visionary compositions and poetry. Filled with Music Boxes, Accordions, Mandolins, Bells, A quartet.. Acoustic guitars.. And endless melody. The whole album works like the records of old.. Like it was meant to be one whole piece of music.