It was 2021. We were all coming out of the pandemic. I’d gone through a lot of change and moved to a flat. I soon meet my now fiancee.

‘Connections’ is my second album of attempted alternative rock. It’s about friendship and love. Without these connections I wouldn’t be here today. It’s a bit of an easier listen compared to my first album ‘Grief’. The vocals are still scruffy and the mixing is questionable. If you’ve been with me at an open mic in recent times you will have heard some of these songs.

You can listen to ‘Connections’ by Polar Bites on Spotify.

There are similarities to ‘Grief’ in the way it sounds. As I wrote then:

I’m proud of it. The drums can sound tacky. The vocals, to my best efforts, are rubbish. But it has feeling and meaning.

Compared to ‘Grief’ it’s a less selfish piece. It was written for friends to celebrate them.

Some of the songs come from the cutting floor of King Brick. These were demoed in 2016. In 2019 I wrote ‘I’m a Mixer’ but knew it was too happy for the ‘Grief’ album. Work on the album really ignited when I wrote ‘Short and Sweet’ and ‘The Path to Better Things’. The rest was gradual until the final two song ‘Slow Goodbye’ and ‘Never Gone’ were finished. I found it difficult to focus on these because I needed them to be as good as I could get.

When it comes to mixing and mastering I’ve taken what I learnt from my first album especially on bass and compression. Previously both were too harsh. Given the space in the sound from taking everything back and aiming for lower volumes I was then able to use reverb to add depth and shape the mix with finer granularity.

It’s available now on most streaming services. I’m proud of the songwriting. Some of the songs came very naturally and some took years to write. I very much enjoyed writing and recording this album and revisiting the memories I’ve got with these connections.