"Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened."
(Terry Pratchett, "Moving Pictures")

Although my mind continues to tell me that I am at most 35 years old, my body is making me realise more and more clearly that I have passed the age of 60: I am in the autumn of my life and the salad days of youth are long behind me.

After a stay in hospital, I am now even dependent on crutches for some time, and I am increasingly realising that my lifetime ain't infinite. I've become like the weathered tree in the song -- but no matter what marks age has left on me: my wonderful wife is still standing by me and will never leave me, because we are inseperable and together we are swaying gently in the autumn wind...

Our next track is going to be released around Beltane 2024.

Back in the 90s I have been living in Bonn where I met Näx, the excellent piper who also player the uilleann pipes on "A Legacy of Love" and "Perfume". We formed an Irish Folk-duo as some kind of side project and played in clubs and venues around town, which was rather unusual in a city whose music scene was very much dominated by blues and jazz at the time.

Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun and, above all, we had put together a really great set of traditional Irish ballads and original compositions - and one of these original compositions included "Down By The Salley Gardens", which is based on the poem of the same name by the renowned Irish poet, dramatist and writer William Butler Yeats.

This poem has always meant a lot to me - and although it has been taken up by quite a few musicians already, I wrote my own melody to it, which I have never forgotten despite all the years that have passed since then.

And so I recorded this song as a tribute to the good times of my collaboration with Näx, because the musical roots of Antichrisis also lie to a rather significant extent in Irish Folk, as can be quite easily heard on this recording.

Our next track will be released around Spring Equinox 2024.