A FORMER guitarist of Yorkshire-based rock band ‘Pulled Apart by Horses’, has returned home to Ingleton and concentrated his skills to help a Ukrainian charity, Voices of Children’.

The result of this project for Ingleton musician James Adrian Brown, 38, has been a crossover art/music project between the Dales, Ukraine and New York which has created a delicate and thought-provoking instrumental electronic composition with the aim to raise money for children in Ukraine.

James, 38, said: “I studied art and music at Settle College for two years after attending high school there. I then moved to Leeds and studied contemporary art and built a career as a rock musician as the guitarist in Pulled Apart By Horses.

“I’m no longer playing in the band and I’ve now come full circle and I’m now back in Ingleton with my own studio making solo electronic music and composing scores for film & TV.

He said: “The project is basically a piece of ambient electronic music that I wrote and recorded with another Ukrainian musician. We then reached out to a Ukrainian artist and a filmmaker to paint the cover art and film a video for the music.”

James began working on the piece last summer. The end result is ‘Behind The Scenes’ a moving creation to encourage positive thoughts and positive feelings which was released for download at the end of February.

James said the piece came about after he became saddened, confused and frustrated by the on-going troubles in Ukraine, and at the same time astounded by the willing and drive he saw by creatives out there during a time of war.

He subsequently approached a number of Ukrainian creatives to collaborate on the project.

The aim was to find the light within the struggle and direct attention away from the war and rather to the beauty and creativity within the country. As the piece began to take form and mould into shape, other creatives began to enter the project to breathe art into the lungs formed by the music.

“The video is strolling aerial footage of the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine which is pretty breathtaking and offers up scenes of beauty in the country, rather than war-torn streets and bombed buildings. The whole point was to show an alternative side to Ukraine right now and raise money for a really important cause out there.

“The music was all done in my studio and we sent audio files back and forth to each other by email until we were happy with the piece.”

The three artists who have worked with him in the project are Uktrainian musician Yurii Popov from the city of Ivano-Frankivsk in Western Ukraine who releases music under the alias 58918012, and artist Anna Veriki, born and raised in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine and now currently lives and works in Kyiv.

On occasion Popov was working on the piece while rocket attacks and air raid sirens sounded.

Artist Veriki has been actively creating and driving her work all throughout the war since it began. Her paintings are described as offering up alternate viewpoints and thought-provoking imagery of what remains and is occurring in Ukraine. Anna has endeavoured to create a painting which captures the essence of the meaning of the project in a clear, open and beautiful way with the collective message that while Ukraine is a country at war, it is still strong, thriving and an actively creative place.

Ukrainian award-winning fine art photographer Andriy Stefanyshyn, who was born in Ivano-Frankivsk and now lives in New York, shot and filmed an array of captivating aerial footage of the autumnal Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine to work alongside the composition.

James added: “We’re hoping to raise as much money for the foundation as possible. I’ve been amazed at how this all worked out. From messages and emails about rocket attacks to some of the collaborators moving from city to city overnight, the drive and passion has been insane to complete the project. The strength and willing is like nothing I’ve encountered before. The Ukraine is such a creative place, even right now at this incredibly hard time it’s still flourishing and growing with art.”

Behind The Scenes released digitally, on Friday, February 27 and all proceeds from Bandcamp sales will be donated to Ukrainian charity ‘Voices of Children’ which is aiding, helping, and supporting children in Ukraine who have had their lives affected by the ongoing war.

Since 2015, the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation has been providing psychological assistance to children who suffered as a result of hostilities in Ukraine. The foundation has nine centres and a hotline for free psychological assistance. More than 60 psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists from the Foundation do their best to ensure that Ukrainian children do not lose their childhoods.

Watch the Video to Behind The Scenes on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFnZAO22QkE

The track is now available online to purchase as a download file on Bandcamp https://jamesadrianbrown.bandcamp.com/ and people can decide how much they would like to pay for it. All proceeds from digital sales go straight to the charity.

Voices of Children website: https://voices.org.ua/