6 Albums on repeat in the studio
Digital collage, sketchbook.
Music is one of the few constants in the studio, so I thought I would begin by sharing six albums that have become part of the way I work. This may be a one-off, or it might grow into something more. Let’s see.
Working alone means that music plays a significant role in setting the pace and atmosphere of the day. My listening is varied—and perhaps a little dark—but these records offer some context for the visual world I am drawn to.
My childhood was spent first in Nigeria, living on a compound, and later in Iran. With no siblings, little television and fewer of the freedoms often taken for granted in the West, much of my time was occupied by imaginative play: collecting objects, inventing worlds and copying images from storybooks.
Looking back, I often felt like a witness, caught between the place I understood as home—Yorkshire—and the very different cultures in which I was living. Standing slightly outside things made me sensitive to contrast: how colour, spirituality, pattern, objects and surroundings can communicate entirely different ways of life. That awareness still shapes the way I look, collect and bring unlikely references together.
The paths I weave through my work are an amalgamation of cultural references absorbed over time: Nigerian spiritual and ethnographic art, the romance and sounds of Tehran, European folk art, old textiles, cinema and painting. These influences coexist—sometimes harmoniously and sometimes in friction. At its heart, the work is concerned with identity and ceremony and the attempt to make disparate elements belong within the same world.
My listening moves just as freely, between Persian-influenced music, doom metal, film scores, traditional instruments and experimental sound. What connects these records is their ability to create atmosphere and transport me somewhere imagined.
Drawing or collaging to music remains at the centre of everything. It allows me to access feelings and ideas before they become completely clear, and to notice unexpected shifts in the work without forcing an image towards resolution.
The work often begins where two unlikely things meet: the ancient beside the contemporary, beauty beside unease, delicacy beside weight. That juxtaposition is where the energy lies—and where my heart blooms.
Perhaps painting is simply drawing with a little more courage. One day, I might find it.
Sicario: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack — Jóhann Jóhannsson
There is something almost physical about “The Beast.” It feels as though the sound is rising slowly from beneath the ground—dark, repetitive and quietly threatening. It creates an enormous sense of space, but also tension, as if something is approaching just beyond view.
Dopethrone — Electric Wizard
Dopethrone is dense, distorted and completely immersive. It feels less like listening to a collection of songs and more like entering a strange, smoke-filled landscape where everything moves at its own heavy pace.
Seanteach — Fohn
Seanteach feels profoundly rooted in the British Isles, evoking memories of coming home to cold air and the rain on my face—something I absolutely adored.
Jardins Migrateurs — Constantinople & Ablaye Cissoko
This album feels like travel without a fixed destination. It moves between places, traditions and periods of time, but never feels confined to any one of them. There is something ancient and deeply human in it, yet it also feels open and alive.
The Proposition: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack — Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
The Proposition transports me completely. It feels vast, scorched and cinematic—a landscape built from sparse melodies, restless strings and long stretches of tension. There is beauty in it, but also danger and unease. Nothing feels overly resolved.
Yaara — Itai Armon
Yaara feels intimate, weirdly nostalgic and quietly cinematic. It carries me somewhere distant and yet familiar. There is a delicacy to it, but also a sense of restlessness and movement.