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heldbytreesblog · 1 day ago

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Hello friend,

Welcome to the Held By Trees Tumblr blog. It’s good to be here and I’m glad you’re here too.

My name is David Joseph and nearly five years ago I sat down at my laptop, bashed in some drums patterns on my midi-keyboard, plugged in my telecaster and wrote four pieces of music over a couple of days, deep into the first lockdown. I had no idea that those pieces of music would change my life and set me off on such an amazingly fulfilling adventure. However, I did have a very good feeling that I was making the best music I had made to that point.

Those pieces of music were called ‘In the Trees’, ‘Rain After Sun’, ‘Mysterium’ and ‘Vexed’. I know I was leaning into my fascination with Talk Talk’s later work, in particular the albums Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock and Mark Hollis, Talk Talk’s leader, his self-titled album from 1998.

I couldn’t have guessed that just a few months later I would be working with several of his former collaborators.

The start point for this story, as with much of my music, goes back to a musician called Graham Coxon. Back in the 90s, I was a teenager and blur became my favourite band. I had grown up listening to my parents record collection; Dire Straits, Genesis, Sky, Chris Rea, Elton John, Eric Clapton, The Waterboys. I had a deep love of that melodic, classic rock, but Britpop and the guitar bands of the 90s was my own era - the guitar-based soundtrack to my adolescence.

I was inspired by Graham and Blur to learn guitar, form bands and avidly study the music that inspired them. After being in several bands in my teens and 20s, I reached a point where I could afford to buy a guitar from a guitar maker by the name of Thomas Gray, who built one for Graham. He also built one for the brilliant Tim Renwick, who I had become familiar with for his work with Pink Floyd, another band I fell in love with as a teenager. In 2017, Thom launched his guitars at Anderton’s Music in Guildford and invited me along. It was there I would collect the guitar I was purchasing from him. It was also there that I got to hang out with Graham Coxon and Tim Renwick, who were there to support Thom and show off his guitars.

I got to chat with Tim Renwick and we became friends on Facebook. Around that time I was developing some instrumental music - piano-led ambient stuff. I had an idea that I showed Tim and he kindly agreed to play on it. We released ‘Dawn Returning’ in 2020.

When I had my aforementioned four new compositions ready, I showed them to Tim and asked if he liked the Talk Talk work I was inspired by. He was honest and said that it wasn’t really his jam, but that his friend Phill Brown had made those albums. Tim introduced me to Phill and I summoned the courage to show him the demos. Phill was immediately very encouraging to me and recommended I show them to drummer/percussionist Martin Ditcham, who had played on those albums I so love by Talk Talk and Mark Hollis. I was absolutely thrilled when Martin said he’d be up for playing on them should I want to develop them in the studio.

Having connected with Phill and Martin, it was then I realised I was one degree of separation from guitarist extraordinaire, Robbie McIntosh. I had bumped into him once in a music shop near where I live and asked him all about the Talk Talk/Hollis sessions. Robbie lives in Dorset, as do I and we have mutual friends. I again summoned the courage to show him the demos and see if he’d be up for developing them with me and Martin. With his agreement now in the bag, I decided to try and find as many Talk Talk/Hollis collaborators as I could and see if they would gather around these pieces of music. I also began to write more and these further compositions would join most of the first four and become the debut Held By Trees album, Solace.

Around this time, I had shown the demos to my friend James Lewis, one of the only people I knew that had the same affinity with the later Talk Talk work as I did. He was immensely encouraging as well, and suggested I connect with the Talk Talk & Mark Hollis Facebook group. It was there I began to find that there would be an interested group of people around the world who might enjoy new music made in the spirit of, and with a very similar approach, to those Talk Talk/Hollis records we all adore.

Throughout 2020 and 2021 I worked with Martin, Robbie, bassist Simon Edwards, pianist Laurence Pendrous, flute/clarinet/sax maestro Andy Panayi and Phill on what became Solace. I also asked Tim Renwick to play and he kindly contributed to the album, as did Dire Straits founding member, David Knopfler. I managed to recruit one of my all-time heroes, Eric Bibb to contribute guitar, and Blur’s fifth member, Mike Smith. Add to these great names the incredible talent of Gary Alesbrook on trumpet, Ben Taylor on double bass and friends of mine like the Apperley string section, Grant Howard on keyboards and Chris Mears on bowed guitar, and you have the cast of musicians that forms Solace.

Phill Brown agreed to mix the album, and in November 2021 we hunkered down at Echo Zoo in Eastbourne and mixed on a trident desk that Tony Visconti used to make David Bowie’s Scary Monsters album!

Two more TT/Hollis veterans completed the picture, with Denis Blackham handling the mastering of the album, and legendary illustrator James Marsh giving us a beautiful logo for the project.

The one that got away is actually Graham Coxon himself. I sent him the demos via his management and he responded very positively. We even had a zoom call to plan a recording session but for a number of personal reasons on his end, sadly it never worked out.

By now I had talked with my friend Bill Brightley at length about the project and he felt he could show the album to some of his friends. Bill is from the retail and distribution side of the music industry. He had previously managed Virgin Megastores in central London and knows a lot of people in distribution all over the world. He took on the project, by now christened as Held By Trees, and began to introduce it to his contacts. Before long we had offers for distributing the album worldwide.

In late 2021 I began to share some of the tracks by putting them up on streaming platforms and doing short runs of CDs. These flew out from our bandcamp site and word started to spread online about the project. Social media was a hugely helpful tool in reaching people who might be interested. Thanks to the TT/Hollis connection, we had something of a story by which the music press might be interested.

By the time we announced Solace was coming, we had the foundations of a following and articles in several established music magazines, like Classic Pop and Record Collector helped boost our profile.

All the while, I began to prepare for how to present Held By Trees as a live act. Early in 2022 I convened four of us who had worked on the album, Robbie, Laurence, Andy and myself, alongside my close friend James Grant on bass and Robbie’s old mate Paul Beavis on drums. Our first rehearsal in London in January of ‘22 was a huge success and I came away convinced that we could present most of Solace in a live setting.

Solace was released in April 2022. I had taken an educated risk on a business loan to press the album on vinyl and a run of CDs. With Nova distributing internationally and a great set up for PR, we were all delighted when the album hit the official indie charts at number 4, and made the physical sales chart as well, at number 22. It seemed my transparent approach to paying respectful homage to Mark Hollis had won over enough people to shift a fair amount of CDs and vinyl. Bill’s friends at Merlin Moosik pulled a blinder by packing and shipping hundreds and hundreds of preorders sold through our online shop. It was such a thrill to walk into HMV in my hometown and see our album in the racks. Later that day we celebrated with a launch party at a private members club in Soho, which Peter Moon, one of our collaborators is a member of.

Press coverage continued with wonderful reviews in Mojo, Classic Rock Italy, Oor in Holland, Empire in Germany, Prog, and Classic Pop among many others. We had sales throughout Europe, America, Canada and orders from around the world. BBC 6 Music had played us - including Guy Garvey from Elbow on his popular Sunday show, also Radio 3 and Soho Radio had played us too. I was in dreamland! So many of my ambitions in music had been let go in my mid 30s. I never thought I would do anything that would connect with people in these ways!

Bill had taken my little project and turned it into a global indie success story. The Talk Talk and Hollis fanbase rallied around the release and celebrated the way that so many contributors to those albums had come together around new music. We even managed to partner with Play It Green, meaning we used album proceeds to plant hundreds of trees in Madagascar, offsetting the carbon created in making the album and then some. Another of Bill’s genius ideas!

We played our first live gig in the autumn of 2022 at The Half Moon in Putney to a full room. To my great surprise and joy, Charlie Hollis - Mark’s son - had bought a ticket for himself and a friend and come along. Laurence, who used to teach the young Charlie piano, had seen him after the show. He introduced us and I was blown away that our project had managed to connect with Mark’s own family.

Solace continues to reach new people and I am forever so grateful to Tim Renwick, Phill Brown, Martin Ditcham, James Lewis and the Talk Talk & Mark Hollis Facebook group for being such early encouragement to me with the demos. I am forever thankful to Bill for his Herculean efforts to get this music out to people.

More of our story in my next blog, where we are welcomed to the Real World and meet an angel called Gabriel.

Thanks for reading,

David 🌲🌳🌲🌳