I am very excited to be able to release my first JB Fairfield album.

This is the kind of music I’ve always wanted to produce, so I have put my heart and soul into it. At this stage, I am mainly exploring instrumental music, however I expect to introduce more vocals as I start finding ways for them to complement the music.

Composing this album coincided with the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this influenced the music in a multitude of ways. I am fortunate that music provides me a safe way to explore my experiences and consequently helps me to better understand what I am feeling.

The quiet, austere periods in isolation, the nostalgia for a world just beyond our reach, the hopes then disappointments, and the fear and anger in evidence in the many conspiracy theories. They are all here in this music. For me, also, this period of major change led to more contemplation on the nature of reality as I experience it – its wonder and its futility!

Hence, the album title, taken from a 1984 novel by Milan Kundera. To quote one passage of The Unbearable Lightness of Being…

"The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? And Sabina – what had come over her? Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden, but the unbearable lightness of being."

I’m not completely sure what the author was saying in this passage, let alone whether I agree, but it’s a great album title and a wonderful jumping off point for this journey of inner discovery. 😊

Jeff