Happy Friday!!! 

We have a new release today which will definitely shake out the last of Winter. Summer is officially here! And we even have a cherry on top - Alexander Hawkins has sent us some of his thoughts to share with you on this release day...

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Today we release the brand new album from Alexander Hawkins 
with Rhodri Davies, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell and Matthew Wright
No Nation but Imagination

Peter Margasak wrote the liner notes and notes:

"His insistent curiosity consistently leads him to fresh discoveries of all kinds of musical practices and traditions, and his gift for assimilating the knowledge he amasses provides an ever-expanding range of possibilities. The material was wide open for the group, his post-production work masterfully knits the music together into what appears as some of the most ensemble-oriented endeavors I’ve ever heard from him."

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...And here are some thoughts from Alexander Hawkins....


"The title No Nation but Imagination is a nod to the great St Lucian poet and playwright Derek Walcott: specifically a line from his poem 'The Schooner Flight', which reads 'I had no nation now but the imagination'. I should say 'another' nod, since I also turned to his brilliance with words in titling my 2022 album Break A Vase.

The poem is a of course a multi-layered masterpiece, and the phrase has many shades of meaning in its original context. As someone for whom part of the beauty of music is its complete abstraction - whilst of course recognizing that there are as many different experiences of music as there are individual listeners - it feels important to add that this album is not substantively linked to the poem in any way beyond the title: it is certainly not any kind of 'realisation' or 'meditation'. This is not how the world of sound works for me personally, and trying to offer any 'commentary' would feel to me to be clumsy at best, and insincere at worst. In short, the title came several months after the music.

Part of the richness of text, however, is that it can of course provide jumping-off points for reflection and thought far beyond its immediate context. This is perhaps not dissimilar to how an improviser might scrutinize a particular musical cell from a composition, and in so doing, somehow end up in some unanticipated sonic neighbourhood (not forgetting the etymology of 'improvised'/'unforeseen'). At any rate, it is easy to see how the phrase 'no nation now but the imagination' strikes a very particular set of resonant frequencies when sounded in today's world of rampant tribalism: whether that is a tribalism for example of geographical nationalism, religion, or of economic clout.

Music feels to me to be an imprecise and inefficient tool for pursuing vital political arguments. The schools and the streets, broadly understood, are almost certainly better places to start. However, what music can do is to provide both a refuge from the world as it is, as well as a model of a world as it could be. 'A' world rather than 'the' world, because it is a world of sound and imagination rather than one of air, soil and water, but nevertheless one where we can potentially experience a much truer autonomy than we - the broadest 'we' possible - do in the contemporary climate. This is the reason for titling the album in this way: I simply wanted to set up a musical environment where we could have some fun, and wander/wonder freely through the sound. Some of the resonances for me of Walcott's phrase live within the same family of ideas.

None of this is meant to sound as lofty as it probably inadvertently does. What I really mean to say is this: I hope that you enjoy the music, and thank you as always for listening."

Alexander Hawkins, April 2026

Have a sublime weekend!

Get your copy of No Nation but Imagination now — available as a physical CD or digital download here.