Working on music through the pandemic was a time to bring friends together.

While working on Take it Easy with Croydon Tourist Office, a large collection of music was pulled together for consideration. We opened up the collection to some of our musician and spoken word friends to see what inspired. As things came together, it became more apparent that these collaborations deserved their own collection.

As we pulled everything together, it became clear that this was an opportunity to share with the world some proto-Croydon Tourist Office recordings.

As far back as 1997, Bryce was working with performance poet Mike McGee in a series of bands and recording projects. While most of these recordings stopped in 2003 when Bryce moved to the UK, they would collaborate from time to time, and Lullaby was one of these sessions, the words of which were recorded the day after Mike performed at Glastonbury’s Poetry & Words stage.

Wanting to bring words and music back together when he moved to Devon, Bryce worked with performance poet Chris Brooks on some collaborations as well as putting on some spoken word shows.

Through these spoken words shows and the wider UK spoken word community, Bryce called out for collaborators to add words to some of his music. While Epicentre Book Café had recently opened its doors, some collaborations began to happen, most notably with Helen Johnson, organiser of the Glastonbury festival’s Poetry & Words.

Over the years, Bryce and Robert have hosted and shared stages with a number of spoken word performers and Bryce recorded a number of musicians. This collection is just a small sampling of the truly talented people they have worked with over the years.

The collection will start appearing on streaming sites over the next week or so, but for now you can find it on the Bandcamp page.