The weather has been glorious in Hope Bagot recently. It’s been inspiring to walk, write music and basically just hang out. Remember those perfect summer days from childhood? Well, I hope the following video will remind you of them (it’s the last piece on the new album – a light note to complete the Utopia experience)!

It’s my 4 year old daughter enjoying herself in Hope Bagot valley!

The fairy wings came from ‘Fairy Love’ – a place where they handmake them!

We orignally went to purchase a giant set of wings for on stage… but once Maddy entered the place she was  in her element & we couldn’t leave without a set!

She also came away with a bottle of fairy dust – and has been sprinkling everyone with it ever since (infact, you can see it on the pictures of the box sets in the shop section)!

Why Utopia Moments? Just take 2 minutes out from your day to visit Utopia – just click above to listen whilst reading the thought piece below…

Terry Riley is an amazing composer. I have always loved ‘Rainbow in Curved Air’. The words below appear on the original album cover from 1969. It’s a beautiful vision of Utopia & inspired me when I wrote  ‘From the Sky’ which you can hear above… also thx to starchild for appearing in the video. It’s was a beautiful hot evening. All the lighting is natural!

And then all wars ended. Arms of every kind were outlawed and the masses gladly contributed them to giant foundries in which they were melted down and the metal poured back into the earth. The pentagon was turned on its side and painted purple, yellow and green. All boundaries were dissolved. The slaughter of animals was forbidden. The whole of lower Manhattan became a meadow in which unfortunates from the Bowery were allowed to live out their fantasies in the sunshine and were cured. People swam in the sparking rivers under blue skies streaked only with incense pouring from the new factories. The energy from dismantled nuclear weapons provided free heat and light. World health was restored. An abundance of organic vegetables, fruits and grains were growing wild along the discarded highways. National flags were sewn together into brightly coloured circus tents under which politicians were allowed to perform harmless theatrical games. The concept of work was forgotten.

We decided to include wild flowers from the valley we live in within our new limited edition box set. UtopiaXO has been a proper assembly line these past few weeks (see picture!!!). Diligently we sent them out to all those people who’d pre-ordered the album. A week later the calls and emails started to come in. The album had not arrived. We soon realised USA, Canada and Australia were fine. It was simply mainland Europe where there was a problem.
We would have never guessed! They’d been impounded by the drug squad pending further investigations! Apparently a particular wild flower we’d used had a fragrance extremely similar to an illegal narcotic!

In Praise of Walking

I discovered the poetry of Thomas A. Clark in a small poetry book shop in the beautiful market town of Hay-on-Wye, England. His work simply captures the essence of what it feels like to be in tune with nature perfectly.

The following are a number of Thomas’s aphorisms on walking. So enjoy a walk today (it costs nothing and is good for you)!

“A journey implies a destination, so many miles to be consumed, while a walk is its own measure, complete at every point along the way”

“To walk at night is the largest experience we can have”

“There are things we will never see, unless we walk to them”

“In the course of a walk we usually find out something about our companion, and this is true even when we travel alone”

The Creative Pause. When attempting to solve an issue, or even enjoy an experience, often focusing on a small detail, contemplating it & considering it helps you enjoy it with more positive intensity. Think of such contemplation as a ‘creative pause’.

By studying the detail in something with a contemplative mind it helps raise you above day to day trivia & take away the chattering ‘monkey mind’  – to a clear objective world where things can be seen for what they really are… or could be.

Clouds and cloudscapes are the greatest free show on earth – so says John A Day in his classic ‘Book of Clouds’.

Think about it, it doesn’t cost a penny to look up and feast your eyes on the view. They are always unique, they connect you to nature and thus remind us of our global consciousness. And they sometimes cause rain!

They have inspired many tracks off the new album, The Light. Tracks such as From the Sky, Blue Skies & Flying High – all pay homage to these beautiful abstract orbs. We’re currently working on a new video which will feature glass orbs running through a blue sky with classic cirrus cloud forms. I’ll post them as soon as they are completed.

Love and Light. David.

PS. I shot the clouds on the video above in May 09. Hope you enjoy them.

We decided to send wild flowers with every copy of the new album boxed set. It’s been a real production line in the kitchens of UtopiaXO! The care and attention to each set has been worth it however, they’ve been really well received by Utopians everywhere! Love & Light!

William Blake’s poem The Fly is just such an amazing vision. Celebrating the fragility but vibrant energy that life provides us with – I see this energy in my children. As adults we always run the risk of starting to forget that life is, in essence, the gift of energy. The footage was shot in the valley of Hope Bagot in South Shropshire next to UtopiaXO studios on a beautiful hot sunny morning in May 09.

A poem written for my children. A light note to complete the experience. A small hidden place, forgotten by the commercial race, where fresh winds do blow… it’s off to Hope Bagot we go! Footage created in the beautiful Hope Bagot Valley, nr Ludlow, South Shropshire. The location is on one of our favourite walks through the church yard on a beautiful May evening 09. The star of the show is my 4 year old daughter, Madeleine. If you’d like to do the walk yourself, pick up a walk guide from the church in Hope Bagot!

This piece celebrates the joyful experience of a couple in union under a blue sky. As the advice goes – make love not war! The complete piece is broken down into 2 parts. Part 1 (which the video extract is taken from) celebrates a couple looking up at a blue sky. Part 2 depicts both party celebrating each other! The video stars our very own Starchild – the voice of UtopiaXO.