Recorded in March 2018, when Rich was over for the London Bass Guitar show, this music is a bit of a dream come true for me - Rich has been one of my favourite bass players for a LOOONG time. I first heard him on a Dapp Theory album in the early 00s, and really dug his playing. Then a few years ago, a friend on Facebook shared a solo video of his that properly blew my mind. When his first all-solo-bass album came out more recently, it confirmed what I already knew - that Rich was one of the most unique, interesting and compelling voices on the bass that I've ever come across.

So with him visiting the UK, we planned to do some playing - I managed to get a couple of college visits happening in Birmingham, which gave us some space and time to spend a long evening recording a couple of hours of improvised music.

I have no idea if what's here is what I'd have expected had I given that much thought before we played - I was just excited to get the chance to make whatever music that came out, so I didn't spend much time pondering the 'what' of it. I guess if you'd asked me, I'd have imagined more hip hop influence creeping in, given our shared love for it and my recent experiments, but that wasn't where things went. And we did just follow where they went. There's pretty much nothing in any of the music we recorded that sounds remotely forced. It's music that takes its time to get wherever it might be heading. Music that does a lot of sightseeing along the way, music that explores the territory, that tries door handles to see what opens, but only goes where it is invited.

There'll be a volume 2 of this music along before too long - the rest of it is even more contemplative and mellow. But these two tunes seem to fit together well, and introduce some of what happens when our two sound-worlds are superimposed in a way that I hope is both enjoyable in and of itself and bodes well for future journeys...