Not too long ago, I was driving along the M42 motorway near Birmingham - I lie…I was stationary in traffic on the M42 near Birmingham - when an advertising banner near the side of the motorway came into its own. You must have seen something similar to it either in the same sort of location or on the back of a ‘bus or in the classified sections of your newspaper: “Tired of commuting? Work from home! Ring XXXXXXX” Recognise it?

It set me thinking…is this the way our whole lives are moving through gentle, subliminal suggestions and forces? Thanks to the advances in computing, we’re encouraged to work at home (“forget commuting, spend more time with your family, be kinder to the environment by not using your car!”). We’re able to shop from home for everything from CDs to a bunch of bananas, delivered directly to our doors, paid for with credit cards we can track through on-line banking. We’re able to develop a whole set of friends from all over the world that not only have we never met, but that we’re never likely to meet, either.

Social networking? Or social engineering?

“Isolation” is set in the near future, when a government not unlike our own, led by someone not unlike our current heads of state, announces that they’ll do away with the daily sturm und drang of daily life, that we’ll be spared the ignominy of actually having to travel to work and cosseted from the dangers of walking the streets. All they want in return is to lock us into our own homes and to leave the rest to them. The “truth” (which our recent administrations have shown to be a very flexible and pliable word/concept) would still be available to us through our home computers, our windows on the world.

Imagine the offer was made tomorrow…would YOU agree to it? What about next year? What if a convenient “dirty” bomb was detonated in your city? Would that convince you? How much persuasion by example would it take?

“Isolation” explores the scenario of a bloodless, consensual, mass internment by a future, global, governmental co-operative and what our reaction as a race would be. I hope our denouement on the album is close to what would actually transpire.

Click on each track for full info.