Making Tracks Podcast

Singer/songwriter, poet, performer (and now podcast host!), this episode focuses on me, Thomas Kam.

Beginning as a classical and jazz pianist, I first started songwriting when I began to set my poems to music. After school, I briefly studied at Oxford before leaving to become a musician. In 2017, I was diagnosed with leukaemia and spent 6 months in isolation, during which songwriting became essential to survival. These experiences made me realise the capacity of music to give meaning to our lives, and to help us through hard times. The track I’ll be playing is “Call Me When You’re Falling Down”, an anthem about friendship and the healing power of music.

Singer/Songwriter Eli Carvajal joins me to discuss “Mom Song”, which describes his mom's transition from  dancer to being a lawyer, and her recent heart attack, which inspired Eli to write “Incubabies”, an extraordinary autobiographical exploration of his family history. 

We also discuss Chinese poetry, our first experiences of performing, and the artist as a “prism for consciousness”.

Singer/songwriter Kathryn Williams (Mercury Prize Nominee) explores "Heart Shaped Stone" which she wrote whilst on tour, taking her son with her for the first time. 

We talk about collaboration and teaching in songwriting, the nuances of silence, the nature of fame, and the value of failure.

Poet, producer and rapper Dizraeli, straddles hip-hop, bassline, and folk. He brings his track “Everybody Here's Golden ”, about the moment of liberation from depression into a moment of clarity and love for everyone around him. It comes from “The Unmaster” (nominated for Worldwide Music Awards’ Album Of The Year 2020), a “sonic film… about how we navigate through madness and collapse”, based on his experience of a mental breakdown. 

We also discuss his time studying percussion in Senegal, the relation of music to Black Lives Matter and his practice of mindfulness.

This is the second trailer. Coming soon!

Making Tracks is about personal and musical journeys. My name is Thomas Kam Meadley, and I'll be interviewing music makers about the story behind one of their songs and the role music has played in their lives. I'm really excited to get started and I hope you'll be able to join me next week on 14th August 2020 for the first episode of Making Tracks!