Bua ~ {The Gift} ~

A weekly blog of unheralded creative gifts.

There are times I find it hard to stop. Rest never seems top of the list of things to do. Perhaps there are many varied reasons for this but one I feel on a constant basis is the gift I’ve been given which is the ability to create. There might seem an arrogance to call it a gift, but I know deep down that it is.

Haybales

When the word rest enters my headspace I feel it like a waste of the gift, that there are opportunities and ideas that need to be made fly and they won’t fly if I’m resting. The fact that I’m sitting writing this , typing this, is indeed another distraction to resting. But without rest we are nothing, without noise we are quiet. Can I rest in that quiet and sit in that silence ? If I’m honest I probably can’t.

Prebales

Bandcamp has been the most wonderful platform for me across so many projects down through the years. It is wonderfully heartening to see responses and support when work goes out. I came from an era you’d try to have created work ‘ signed ‘ by a record company. When I think of the madness of those day’s, to quote Brian Brannigan “ and the hound believes he’ll catch the hare”. We were all bonkers. Now I know so many of my generation finding remenents of the gifts we always had and finding the creative spaces to let them fly.

Paul Page formally of The Whipping Boy has yesterday released some new work under the name Polaroid Ghosts. It accompanied my admin heavy work morning yesterday and was the perfect partner to a steaming cup of coffee. It is a beautiful work. His Bua lay under the bed for many years, we’d spoken about that. He has dusted off the cobwebs and shook new life into his talented fingers . And what a joy that he has.

Entitled BELGIGA 1898, inspired by the book ‘Madhouse at the End of the Earth’ by Julian Sancton, it has all the beauty of the Japenese ambient band Mono, the latenight stillness of Stars Of The Lid , it is a drifting off and a coming home. It is a record so many people may never find, but those who do will have found the work and the gift of an extremely talented musician.

In 2026 I’m going to try and find nuggets of work from the wonderfully gifted Irish underground. Let’s see what gifts we find.

P x