Brett Charlton

Keep It All Real

2023 was the year where after some 20 odd years of parenting, the age of adulthood for my offspring came into reality. With the traditional “school” days finished, like the entire modern civilization species before them, they are venturing out into the world of reality with all the excitement and challenges that this presents. Reflecting on my 53 years (35 of them in the world without a uniform), it is quite a journey.

I was speaking to a friend of mine whose oldest son had finished school at the same time. During the years we have often sat and reflected on the progress of our children and what they were challenged with at the time. During this conversation we were talking about how his child (now adult) had succeeded in the goal of getting absolutely outstanding results in the ‘take this test to prove you were paying attention” one chance to get it right moment. This adult is now on a three month adventure solo travelling Japan as a reward for twelve years of “paying attention”.

The morning after this discussion, at six am over a coffee, I was reflecting on that conversation and the past twelve years of this person’s life and what they will be facing as they enter the world as an “adult”. In one of those rare moments where the universe dictates the narrative, a line popped out of the sky into my head and fifteen minutes later I had written and composed “Keep it all real”. An hour later I had mapped the song, recorded a brief live acoustic version and sent it off to Paul Cecchinelli (the same person whom I worked with on “Sun and the Sea”). A few weeks later we met in his studio for two hours and recorded “Keep it all real” as it sounds here.

The song channels is a message from a father that has witnessed both the journey in his lifetime as well as the beginning of the journey for the next generation. From my perspective it is a message of reality mixed with challenge, direction and hope for the next generation. I also think it should be played at each leaving assembly at every school on the planet - but who has the time to try to achieve that!

On this one I play the guitar throughout (including the solo that undoubtably channels David Gilmore from Pink Floyd - years of listening and playing Floyd music will do that) with Paul singing and adding the other instruments (put some headphones on if you can - there are some quite cool bits in there that you will miss if you don’t pay attention - awesome layering). Daniel Townsend (vocals on “When Machines were just our pets” and “Coffee Blues” has an instrumental version of this track and will be laying some vocals over it soon and I will pop this version up when complete.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the creation - it is one of my personal favorites of the slowly growing collection of originals.

“Be the resistance”

Sun and the Sea

The Sun and the Sea started with a purchase of a new guitar. I had been listening to an Australian artist, Xavier Rudd, for some time and decided the first piece I wished to play on this incredible new instrument (Cole Clarke Fat Lady with Redwood top, Blackwood sides for the guitar nerds out there) was his acoustic version of “No Woman no Cry” which is in open E tuning (there is a nod to this at the end of Sun and the Sea). Over the weeks that followed I found a bit of a new world in the guitar in this tuning and one of those magical moments where the stars align, and the notes all come together fell from the universe. During this time, I had also been exploring my home State of Tasmania, Australia with my partner and some close friends. From the coast to the mountains and all in between we managed to escape the screens and embrace nature, fun, music and food for days at a time on mini adventures. The song Sun and the Sea comes from both the inspiration of the planet we live on (especially where I am blessed to live), the people in my life and the reflections of the simple things. I was lucky to happen across an excellent musician in Tasmania (Paul Cecchinelli) who was able to add to the song with vocals and other instruments to create the version that can be heard here. I was also privileged to have an old school friend (Phil Selmes) who recently completed a documentary on Tasmania, and he agreed to put some of his work with the song - thus the video clip here. The picture of me that you see here was taken at Arthurs River on the West Coast of Tasmania - behind me is our closest star sinking into the ocean and Argentina some 15,000KM away - the largest stretch of water between two land bodies on the planet - an incredible energy where the forces of nature and the rhythm of the Earth can be felt strongly.

Is there anybody out there?

“Is there anybody out there” – a father and son collaboration between Brett and William Charlton, 2020 (mid COVID-19). Capturing videography and audio from around the world, this video has been produced as a personal creative project to capture a moment in time on our planet. Acknowledgement to the various videographers, media outlets, and journalists is given here collectively as thanks to your commitment and creativity (we hope that in using your material in this video that it is seen as a compliment). Thanks also to the people that have audio in this video – we have taken some sound bites of public speeches to reflect relevance. Thank you to Pink Floyd – the guitar on this track is an interpretation of the original that appears on The Wall (it is hoped the large collection of Pink Floyd purchases over the years in our household compensates somewhat for taking inspiration from your composition). The middle narrative is taken from an interview between BBC reporter Paul Moss and a person who has lost their job in London and become homeless due to COVID-19 – his name is given only as Fredrik. The final narrative is Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, taken from an interview with BBC reporter Zeindab Nadawi. Thank you to these journalists for capturing moments in time such as this – again, we use these audio grabs as a compliment to you.  There is further detail at the end of the video. Concept by Brett and William Charlton. Guitar – Brett, Synthesizer – William, Video and sound editing – William. Tasmania, Australia. May 2020. We suggest wearing headphones to capture the soundscape of the video. Peace to all. We wish you all the best during these very strange times.