About This Album
Sagittarius Rising came about as a concept in late 2025 when I decided to explore the concept of birth charts and astrology. No real reason for that, bar I remember Roland Orzabal talking a long time back in an interview, after the release of The Tipping Point about there being an element of his chart that mentioned Saturn rising. This intrigued me and following reading George O’Dowd‘s most recent autobiography where it seems that he has a particular interest in this subject, I have to admit my interest was piqued. What is this all about? Am I a typical Leo? What is a typical Leo? What is all this astral houses stuff? Are things really pre-ordaned, how much can you tell from all this stuff or is it just hocus-pocus?
So, I had my chart done. And, I found it fascinating reading and in some ways yes, maybe it did answer some questions that I had about why I think the way I do, how some of my behaviour, thought patterns etc are indeed typical for someone like me and other …. stuff. And, the other ancillary information that came up with it involved both Orzabal and David Bowie where it said there were similarities, which intrigued me as they are both artists that I have a lot of respect for.
So, the title came mostly out of that but with a sideways wink to a Tears For Fears b-sides album released just after the Phonogram years in 1996 called Saturnine, Martial And Lunatic. In reality it was a collection of b-sides that their old label was using to wring the sponge dry, given that Curt had left the band anyway and Roland had subsequently signed to Sony in order to release Raoul & The Kings Of Spain. Anyway, I digress, for a change. Sagittarius Rising, is an album where it is akin to a concept album – the structure has been set at 12 tracks, each one representing a solar house (very concept album-like LOLZ) but having its own theme pertinent to that house and to my chart.
The concept behind the Saturnine, Martial And Lunatic album was that they gathered the shadowy, eccentric, harder-edged outtakes under planetary archetypes (Saturnine = melancholic/heavy, Martial = aggressive/driven, Lunatic = wild/emotional)…. whereas Sagittarius Rising, in many ways, is doing the polar opposite: collecting the bright, expansive, forward-aimed “arrows of experience”, as if in an archers quiver under the most optimistic, freedom-loving archetype in the zodiac—Sagittarius. And, wondering at that point “well, I’ve collected all this experience…. what do I now do with it?”
In many ways, I guess its like the flip of a script:
Saturnine Martial & Lunatic looks back at darker, discarded fragments.
Sagittarius Rising looks forward with everything that’s been learned, turning scars and experience into propulsion.
And the title Sagittarius Rising works on a number of levels:
- A literal deliberate parallel to the Tears For Fears concept/structure.
- Symbolic of “rising” above the past – the dawn after the long Saturnine night.
- The rising sign as the face we choose to show the world now (even if my actual rising is Gemini, the album puts on the Sagittarius mask, philosophical, humorous, questing).
As a result, I think this gives the whole project an even sharper identity. It’s not just a companion to Time Demands… it’s a deliberate, intentional mirror/reversal of a specific, beloved artefact but one that is without doubt, about myself and what I have learned from life, my friends and family.
It is though a long way behind in the queue of things to do: Time Demands has to be done first, then most likely the soundtrack to Chasing A Rainbow (after all, thats only been waiting for 20 years to be completed, LOLZ) and Echoes also has its proverbial elbows out. This will probably be commenced some time in either very late 2026 or more likely early 2027 and the writing will evolve as the time goes on. But it is absolutely definitely going to happen.
The artwork, as before is my concept, but interpreted through GenAI; it is a picture in an abandoned room that used to be a picture gallery of my birth chart as a faded picture in an old frame seen from an oblique angle.
I think I can safely say anyone who know me properly can see where that inspiration has come from, LOLZ. I’m very much looking forward to it, I have a very positive feeling about where it is going to take me to and its going to present me with one of my most challenging writing targets.
