A couple of nights back I dreamt that an acquaintance (to whom in actuality I gave a fairly decent piece of recording equipment before leaving NYC the last time) came to visit, bringing a piano for me..... a piano with a couple of stuck keys, but an extraordinarily intimate and delicate touch, and a candlelight burning within. Before I sat and touched the piano I had thought not to keep it, but loving where it was placed in my room, and the feel of playing it I decided to keep it for deeply personal moments, away from work. Then my acquaintance asked me for advice about lyric writing, and I replied with three points. A good lyric had to one, be truthful, two, hone in in an exaggerated manner on some detail somewhere, and three at some point have a brilliant metaphor. In my dream I had concrete examples of all three, but of course I have forgotten now. The stuff of dreams…..

The Winter Years - the making of the Armes/Desisto album

“In August 2020, after a year of being unable to play music, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.“

Shocked into action by his “life sentence” illness, but energised by the efficacious remedies available, Geoffrey Armes refused to be cowed. Fortified by medicinal drugs, he returned to full-time music making at his residence in Berlin.

The diagnosis had been a long time coming, as the unwelcome shadow of Covid 19 had darkened the world, slowing Armes’ will to go out and be diagnosed and treated until the threat was (partially) lifted in the summer.

He felt that this music was going to be significant, for him at least. “Well, it was quite possibly my last opportunity to say anything, whether trivial or serious, in my own voice,” Armes explained. “Drug therapy and Parkinson’s interactions are noticeably fickle, and at 64 how much energy did I have left anyway?” he wondered. “I knew I wanted to pull in and interweave a wide variety of styles and influences and have a colourful pallet”. And he didn’t want to work alone, craving the yin and yang, to and fro and artistic edge of at least a duo situation if not a band.

Over the years - decades even - Armes had maintained a working relationship with Tom Desisto, now based in Woodstock, NY. They had met in “the City”, introduced by a mutual friend when Armes first arrived in NYC from Berlin.

They’d ended up playing in bands together, scoring choreography and advertisements together, hanging out on the corner watching people pass by together, and eating together at the restaurant that was equidistant for the both of them - Charlie Mom’s at 11th and 6th in the West Village.

Of course months and years flowed by - Armes was busy in Concert Dance studios in NYC but also Tokyo, London, Berlin etc., and Desisto was as likely to be in LA accepting an Emmy nomination or scoring a movie as he was in his commercial studio by Union Square.

Then first Desisto left Manhattan, moving to the country, and then Armes packed up and moved his family back to Berlin.

Armes began writing and recording in his studio, relishing the return of the mastery to his hands and letting emotion and awareness seed what he was creating in a new way. He let Desisto hear the track “The Threshold World”, and then Desisto approached him, stating frankly, “You should make an album.”

Most of the songs on the album seem to deal with being in two places at once, or between places, on journeys. Some of them are fantasies about life before life or after death, some about being in trains, some about ambivalent relationships.


Mix, Guitars and Production: Thomas Desisto


The Players: Kathie, who is Mexican but also Ukrainian, drifted to Berlin ended up in my studio working on an experimental piece called “Three,” before drifting on and gone. I tracked her back on west coast Mexico doodling in the sun and slipped unnoticed back into her world wangling stellar soaring flaming flamboyant broad sparkle Viola parts onto Glitter. Files circulated and delivered at odd moments unexpected, created vibe that crossed our speakers.

Savannah, the violinist from Melbourne I met in Innsbruck. She was in love and I was in love but we took time together to play, her with her violin and voice me and my voice and guitar as well as attended each others gigs, hand in hand with our loved ones. Her performances ruled, my jaw slacked in admiration. We moved on each with our lovers, me to NYC her to San Francisco and both had children with our lovers so a kind of love was cross-pollinated when I finally tracked her to LA and asked her to play on Linette, which is a tune about first love. She showed me the filigree longing and loneliness and lingering light residual in the song.

Tess: what to say about you, Celtic cloud child, sun on Cornish uplands, the voice of a particular journey but also articulate with the mythology of an entire people? Reticent as ever, you delivered silver lode to the corners, illustrated my fable of fantastic love on a hillside facing west. Your voice sublime, your (alternative) mix a lovely gift. What magic you weave in Wales these days.

Terri, I met you in NYC, some grey day of making new acquaintances downtown, and you showed me Tom’s new guitar and then Tom himself and gently stepped away… always there as we sweated together through various incarnations of varying merit…and always available with sweet harmony and vibrant response. Your voice is everywhere in NYC, ads, jazz bands, back ups for everyone, and occasionally I sneak something in. Love is the action. Thank you.


Michael played steady bass on Linette with a kind of youthful integrity that fits the theme of a song that recalls my days as nearly as old as he is. Fond memories of waking mornings in Berlin to find last night’s NYC work in my mail.



Kory I met you years ago when I recruited a percussionist for ‘my band,’ but soon enough we moved into a duo creating a kind of textured percussion riven guitar drenched set of recordings never quite finished as the road called you and killed our time together but

I always knew those samples of bowl gongs, chimes, cymbals, and metals of all descriptions would be right and here they are decorating “The Endless End”. Decades have passed but your tactile resonance has not diminished.

The Conga Dream

It was a dusty wooden storage room, recently unlocked. Summer’s end. I retrieved the Conga from the far corner where I’d left it in the Spring, and noted, barely surprised, that the head was split. It’s always a risk, leaving instruments in storage in relatively public spaces like studios or backstages, however securely supervised they seem to be. Sometimes one can rely on the Insurance to pay up, other times, well, you are on your own. In this case it would be, what, 40 Euro to repair, or I could attempt it myself. I squinted at the rim, and decided that knowing my own levels of mechanical (in)competence I’d be better off having a professional do it. A secondary but important factor was the question: had the drum warped. The summer had been ferociously hot and that room must have broiled. One could still feel the heat in the splintered pillars and dusty floor a month after the heatwave. This, and not vandalism, was the source of the damage. The drum needed careful handling by a profi. Which, whom, where though?

I mused a couple of possibilities but then realised, of course, Olly. The guy I had bought it from. The guy who made his living healing and refurbishing old Congas and Djembes in his flat by Teltow. He’d do it well, with love and care, and could use the business in his one man operation. He’s a family to feed.

I got round to Olly’s yard and it was bigger than before, busier, bustling even. Professional yes, but with a new business feeling of edge. Who were these people, where was Olly? Oh he’ll be back soon, just wait. Well can I leave this Conga for him, he will know it. No no, one of our other guys can take it, but no, I wasn’t happy with that. I wanted Olly to look at it. Eventually he arrived, a little harassed, greeted me and then asked if I could wait for a few minutes.

What else could I do? I needed the Conga.

But at a certain moment, I realised that it was okay not to have the Conga for a while, even play on the dry slappy dappy ping of the Bongo skin instead - it was all acceptable. I left the Conga, knowing I’d be back for it, it was well taken care of, and woke to play the Bongos.

And indeed, my intact Conga.