The Hermitage Suite

My new album The Hermitage Suite is now available worldwide on all major digital streaming platforms. Over the coming months I will be releasing various new videos to accompany the release and some low key live shows are being organised.

The Hermitage Suite is an enhanced re-release of my first album that I originally released twenty five years ago. This is, most certainly, my most intimate and personal album. You can read more about the album and the songs involved over the coming months on my blog and podcasts from this website.

I have thoroughy enjoyed the creative process of enhancing my original 4-Track recordings from 25 years ago. The Beatles have just released 'Now And Then' with the tape recording of John Lennon brough back to life with AI and finally making the song fit for release.
I used the same technology to enhance a recording of my Dad, Laurence Mackin, also from 1978 which was the keystone of this album. The original release in 1998 could never have achieved what is possible today.

I have always been a fan of album sleeve notes as I feel they really enhance the listeing experience. Mindful of this, I have created a small book to accompany the album. Please feel free to download it here to enhance your listening pleasure on your preferred streaming platform. Click here to download the pdf.

Latest Blog Entry

Murder In The Rain Video

As a slight intermission to my Hermitage Suite releases, I couldn't let the 22nd December 2023 go unmarked. The date just happens to be a hundred years since my fictional character of Albert McGuinness was brutally murdered whilst walking home to his family from work on December 22nd 1923. To mark the occasion I have spruced the video with some new images and footage, along with a brand new mix of the song.

I will never know why I picked that date back in 1987 when I wrote that song. Back then, the 1920s were a very long time ago. I couldn't even envisage what the 2020s would be like and, here we are in a heartbeat!

The song was a condemnation of violence in all its forms. The gangster crimes of the 1920s compared, at the time, to the violence in Northern Ireland and then later the Middle East.

Now in 2023, I am ashamed to say that our planet can never learn the lessons of the past to make the future a better place for our children. What is currently happening on planet Earth at the moment sickens me to the core of my soul: especially Ukrane and Gaza. Violence is never the answer to anything. Innocent people are always caught up in these matters as the great money machines of war spin on. I truly hope that 2024 can bring peace to these lovely people........ Click Here To Read More

Concert At Saabat Art Gallery

On 7th December 2023 I played my first solo concert in twenty years to a full house in the glorious Saabat Art Gallery in South Bank. I have never enjoyed performing as much as I did this magical night. It was intimate and very personal and I loved it.

The Saabat Art Gallery is an incredible hub for an exciting new art movement that I have been keen to support since I discovered it during the Covid 19 Lockdown era. It was a real honour to be asked to perform my songs at the first of many concerts at this very special place. Over the coming months I will release some videos from the performance but, for now, here is a recording of one of my newest compositions that will appear on my next album 'The Ring Of Gullion'. The song is inspired by stories that my Uncles told me of a horse tethered to the back of a Cinema in South Bank called The Majestic. As the horse would throw every child who tried to ride it straigh off, they all believed it Was Roy Roger's Horse.

My Vision As A Musical Artist

I firmly believe that music is a serious art form and can encompass all the disciplines of traditional and modern art. From the fantastic artwork created for posters and album covers to the stunning filmmaking and photography that has gone into the production of Music Videos. Wonderful words have been written in articles, revues and analytical essays on the classics. I bring all of these elements to my original music and hope to use this website as a showcase for each of them.

I hope to achieve all of these aims with this website and make this a place where a deeper and more intellectual exploration can occur on the many subjects surrounding music-making. I hope to write about influential songwriters, analyse songs and production techniques, create stunning cinematic videos and present my music in its most digestible formats for my audience.

To survive and flourish, music has evolved over the last few hundred years and presented itself in the most accessible and innovative mediums. From simple sheet music that has allowed us to play the musical ideas of the great composers to the first recordings, we have been able to interpret the most amazing music in new and exciting ways. Libraries of brilliant articles have been written on music, artists and production methods that have allowed music to become a completely immersive experience. We are now living in a world where spatial audio can be experienced on a pair of headphone buds. We can view movie resolutions of stunning clarity surpassing 4k which now looks as good as real film. And all of this can be created on a computer by just one person with the knowledge to create anything an imagination dictates.

This website will allow me to do all of this. I can present my music, videos, podcasts, live shows and blog all from the one place.

Tommy The Trencher

My new single Tommy The Trencher is now available from all digital stores and streaming sites. The song is featured in this month's Song Section and can be explored by clicking here. There is also a brand new video for the song added to the video section that features never before seen images of WW1 soldiers, especially Middlesbrough Red Cross Society. The photos have been restored and coloured to feature in the video. This is the first release from my Hermitage Suite Album that will be re-released to mark the 25 Anniversary of it's release on 31st December 2022. The album has been enhanced with the new technology available today and I am very excited in sharing the results with you..........Click here to read more

More Blog Entries

New additions will be added every Friday. My journal will grow and grow.

A Haunting Glimpse into Nature's Reclamation

Imagine, if you can, that humans no longer occupied Planet Earth. What would happen to the remaining infrastructure?

In a hauntingly beautiful visit to Inishark, situated off the rugged West Irish Coast, my family and I were granted a unique and privileged view of nature's indomitable power to reclaim a once-thriving human infrastructure. Our expedition, for a video shoot of my Hermitage Suite track 'As Wise As A Serpent,' presented an awe-inspiring spectacle of a world where humans no longer occupied the planet.......Click Here To Read More

Nick Drake

I first heard the haunting sound of Nick Drake during my early twenties when a few friends, Bob Bruce and Ian McElroy, thought that I might appreciate his music (given my taste for bohemian-styled folk music). Nothing could have prepared me for the deeply meaningful messages conveyed in the songs of this stunning enigmatic songwriter. I was hooked from that moment on.

Bob introduced me to a few individual tracks on a mixtape along with songs by a contemporary of Nick Drake, John Martyn. Ian on the other hand, on loaning me 'Five Leaves Left', made me realise that to fully appreciate Nick Drake, one should only ever attempt an initial listen on the basis of a consuming a full album...............Click Here To Read More

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