NEWS - 3 JAN 2026

Firstly, may I take the opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year and say that I hope your 2026 brings you good health, contentment, creativity and inspiration.

Let's start off with a catch-up

SURGERY + POSTPONED SHOWS

As many of you know, I had to have emergency surgery in late December, literally on the day of the first Christmas show in Hamburg. I'd had a full A-Z health-check a few days earlier, one that'd been arbitrarily booked, where the Doctors discovered that one of my femoral arteries was blocked. My vascular specialist examined it, made some calls and sent me to hospital immediately to have emergency surgery the next day. What could have happened doesn't bear thinking about. The recovery, even if painful and exhausting, was a small price to pay. It's gone well and I am truly grateful to the MRI Doctors who caught it, my specialist who reacted at lightning speed, the exemplary hospital staff and the Vascular-Surgeons who carried out the operation. My profound thanks goes to the fans who sent a sea of positive messages and energy. I hope you'll understand but I had to take a break to focus on recovering, hence my absence from posts. I'll be fit in time for the Italian shows in January.

Unfortunately, we had to postpone the German shows in Hamburg, Dresden and Chemnitz, and one show in Athens, Greece. New dates will be posted for all events very soon.

It's all a matter of perspective but every situation, no matter how bad it seems, includes lessons and positives to take from it. I had a lot of time to think these last weeks. I'd been in the process of working on the next album "Destruct" last year when everything came to a halt and I had to stop for 2+ months. When I got back to it, I wasn't happy with what I'd heard and ended up rewriting half of the album. It's not about some abstract perfectionist ideal. Because of what this album is about, and it is as personal as it gets, there is a clear idea in my mind for what I want this to be, how I want to react to it and how it should make me feel. I don't want to compromise on that. Other work had already backed up so production time was limited. Then the Christmas shows came and, well, you know what happened towards the end of those.

A premiere had been planned for Chemnitz on Dec 25th called "Destructivism" - a near-hour non-stop live performance of tracks from Destruct and VNV classics involving a lot of synths. This still needs to happen.

I'm back working on the final production for Destruct. Forgive me but I'm not going to rush it, considering what I've just been through. I'm glad for having had to take a break. Fresh ears and some distance that inspired ideas for doing some parts better than before.

As well as the production for Destruct, we've shows in Italy (Jan 26), Ireland and Scotland (end of Jan), a whole slew of shows in North America (mid-April to late-May) and new dates for the postponed shows to come. See the LIVE page for all the dates and details