GLORY! Our first single is out and ready for your ears. I’m super pleased with how it’s come out and I hope you all enjoy it! Here’s the track:

Here are your options for listening to the full track:

1. Buy it on Bandcamp - you can listen/stream a few times for free and then own the track for just £1.501

2. Subscribe to this Substack - this includes the download and gets you access to future releases and cool stuff like STICKERS for just £3.50 per month (this is the best way to help us make more music)

3. Wait a while - the track will be live on your favourite streaming platforms in July

Lyrics

New life, promises
Can we get back to the plan
Where you knit them
Fearful, and wonderful

Now blink, ten years gone
Since I left you at the hospital, alone
No one answered
The night alarm

Crying over broken eggs
Maybe we can try again someday
It is well, it is well
It is well with me

Is it written in the book?
No answers can I trust
You are with me
You are with me

Glory

You can read the story behind the lyrics here:

For What Joy

The ten-year journey behind "Glory"

This is the first post in a series about our upcoming single: Glory. In this post, I want to tell something of the story behind the song. Prepare for the overshare…

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3 months ago · 11 likes · 4 comments · Graham Ormiston

Liner notes

Thank you to everyone involved. I love you all!

• Lyrics and music: Graham Ormiston

• Vocals: Zoë Grace Wang

• Rhodes piano: Naomi Wang

• Piano: Pete Mills

• Drums: Tobias Himawan

• Guitar/Bass/Trumpet: Graham Ormiston

• Production: Graham Ormiston

• Mixing and Mastering: Stephen Roe

• Recorded at: 9M Studios, UpperRoom Dunstable, Brixton Hill Studios

• Artwork: Emily Downe

NOW Listen!

Only paid subscribers can go any further… so perhaps I’ll see you on the other side for your link to download our new song.

If not… thanks for reading!

Gram x

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Peace and love, Graham

Admin is not my strongest gift1.

My personality, as far as I could be accused of having one, is mediator, or peacemaker2 (Myers Briggs INFP) which on the 16 Personalities site is depicted as someone skipping through a meadow.

As someone who received numerous school reports with the words “daydreaming” and “head in the clouds”, I suppose it’s encouraging to know that my personality made me do it. It’s not my fault, miss! Myers Briggs made me do it!

The point is:

No one told me how much admin was required to make music.

To make music, I thought there was supposed to be this ultra creative ‘flow state’ where you connect with God and he writes through you and the words and chords just spill out and it takes shape and everyone who listens to it starts crying for joy.

Or maybe you’d be in the studio with friends, and have a breakthrough moment where a song is born in about five minutes and then it’s on the radio and you can’t believe how quickly it all came together, and then you fail to handle the fame and success, fall into depravity and then write a book about it.

Or perhaps, like Raye, you can write 200 songs per year (frankly, ridiculous3). The songs just fall off you like dandruff from a geography teacher.

There might have been a moment a little bit like that when I first wrote Glory, the single we’re releasing later in May. (BTW if you missed the story behind it, have a read):

In the end, the lyrics and the tune came together, we jammed it out in the studio one evening, and I was happy with the result (the demo, also in the link above).

Then came… The Admin.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that once you’ve got the demo, it’s pretty much plain sailing. I mean, the song is written… this is where I guess music producers come into their own. They really put the producer into music producer.

I mean, they actually produce something.

Which if I’m honest, has always been the difficult part for me. As a floaty mediator who’s already starting to dream about catching other butterflies in others parts of the meadow4, producing stuff actually feels quite difficult.

Dating vs Marriage

If creating music is like dating, then producing music is more like marriage.

Creating music is the exciting, exploratory, discovery phase. It’s new, it’s different, you don’t know where it will lead. Will this song be the one? Maybe you’ll ditch it after a while. It didn’t work out. It wasn’t you—it was them5.

While marriage is punctuated by some of those same exciting moments, making a life together also includes a sizeable chunk of admin. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been married for sixteen years and I love it. But you can’t expect marriage to function like your dating life or you’re going to be in for a shock when the grind kicks in. It’s the same way that a 5k run is fun and all that, but doing a Marathon has greater value and prestige—for the level of toil and suffering that you bore to get there.

So with music. In a way, anyone can string a song together.6 But crafting a song and then taking it from paper into a demo and then into a produced song—that’s both skill and toil, and to be celebrated! Speaking of which, I’ll be celebrating a few in the community news a bit further down.

Producing ‘Glory’

With the music production for the track Glory, for example, this is my extremely inefficient process so far:

1. Record guide track (me on keys, playing badly in my bedroom). This is just the framework of the song, nailing down the tempo.

2. Record Zoë’s guide track vocals at her breakfast table (complete with beeping dishwasher). She sounds incredible, obviously, but it’s just a rough take so that we can now…

3. Record Tobias playing drums. We took a fun road trip to Upper Room in Dunstable and spent the day laying down three whole tracks (and eating chicken from Tim Hortons). Notable moment: Tobias played me an emo song that he wrote during lockdown, and it was really, really good.

4. I then went to Brixton Hill Studios on my own to record bass, guitar, and some guide trumpet parts. No photos or footage of this as I was too stressed trying to use the time well to remember to do any marketing.

5. About this time I’ve done a gentle review mix to see how things are feeling. I’m pretty pleased, but the horn parts need re-recording, and annoyingly so does the guitar because the amp was a bit buzzy (the dangers of playing on a single-coil guitar like a Telecaster). Here’s a tiny snapshot for you:

At this point, the only feedback I’ve sought out is from Tobias (to check the drum takes I used and make sure he’s happy) and Stephen (who has a great ear for what works). So:

6. I head to Zoë & Naomi’s place for a reality check. I play them the whole track a couple of times and the feedback is good! Phew. Zoë is exhausted and falls asleep on the sofa, so I take the opportunity to record Naomi on the Rhodes (electric keyboard) which adds some lovely extra sweetness to the track.

7. Vocal time! Zoë and I head to 9M studios in Elephant and Castle to do the final lead and harmony vocals. I also do a cheeky electric guitar re-record.

We’ve found that recording Zoë while listening to speakers on a low volume (instead of headphones) works best as she can express herself more fully. For me, any slight recording quality perfectionism is totally overruled by the vibe and feel that she brings with this freedom!

Present day: this is just one track out of five I’m recording this year, and already I’ve been in three studios, on one road trip, and I’ve written, scrapped, and re-recorded parts. I’ve had to keep track of who I’ve booked in for what (the band are super busy with their London lives, so I have to sometimes book things a month in advance). It’s an admin slog.

But it’s totally worth it.

All that’s left to record now is the piano (replacing my guide track) and then re-record the horn parts. Then, I’ll be heading back up to Upper Room to do a final mix and master with Stephen, ready for release later in May. Watch this space!

Community News

For some time now I’ve wanted to have a place to share cool stuff that some of my friends have been working on. In the absence of a better idea, I’m going to start sticking them at the bottom of these posts!

1. New Single: ‘Maker’ by Jono Thorne

is a friend and talented singer-songwriter who’s launching an EP this year. His latest single, ‘Maker’ just came out and it’s lovely stuff:

Where to follow: Substack, Instagram

Notable mention: artwork for the EP and each track is by the very talented Rebecca Lim:

2. Our Zoë gigs with a jazz band in Farringdon

Zoë Grace Wang played some huge (big band) variations of her EP, ‘Forming Shapes’ to a packed audience at Piano Smithfield in Farringdon last week. She performed with Rev21 at their residency there, and blew the roof off.

regularly gigs around London, so make sure to follow her on Insta to stay up to date. She’s got some really exciting new music in the works too… Also, buy her stuff on Bandcamp eh? Musicians should get paid!

Come to think of it, I think I’ll do a feature on her soon.

3. ‘The Making of a Mother’ short film

Something a bit different — Emily Downe (who created the artwork and animation for our Christmas single) has just released a stunning animated short film, and I’m telling everyone I know about it.

Here’s Emily’s Linktree.

4. Ama Adem, ‘Skin in the Game’

Ama is one heck of a vocalist and songwriter - this soul-lifting single came out a little while ago but that was before I was writing this Substack, so here it is for your listening pleasure, in case you missed it:

Here’s Ama’s Linktree - make sure you check out her newest single, ‘Walls’!

That’s it for this episode, but please subscribe (free or paid) to get notified when we release ‘Glory’ — very soon! And let me know what you think of the community news bit and what else I can include!

Much love,

Graham x

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Some songs take a long time to emerge.

Like popcorn, there might be a hint of something—a sensation, a feeling—but only after waiting patiently does it suddenly pop into the world.

Glory was one of those songs. The events took place a decade ago, but it took much of that time to process and eventually formulate a song. Here are the lyrics below—skip to the bottom to listen to the song in full (this version is from our very first studio jam).

Glory

New life, promises
Can we get back to the plan
Where you knit them
Fearful, and wonderful

Now blink, ten years gone
Since I left you at the hospital, alone
No one answered
The night alarm

Crying over broken eggs
Maybe we can try again someday
It is well,
It is well it is well with me

Is it written in the book?
No answers, can I trust?
You are with me
You are with me
Glory

Glory is, first and foremost, a song about pain. Specifically, a miscarriage.

To set the scene, it’s 2016. Lucy and I have been married for seven years, and trying for a baby for a couple. A smiley face on a stick finally gave us the news we had been hoping for: she was pregnant.

When you get pregnant, the advice is often to wait until the 12-week scan before telling friends and family. I believe this is to reduce the additional pain and awkardness of having to tell more people in the eventuality of a complication, but I also believe this advice is misplaced, as you’ll see.

We only knew Lucy was pregnant for a week or two before we knew there was a problem: she was bleeding. We made a very late night trip to the A&E in Salisbury. We were eventually seen by a young, unsympathetic (or possibly just awkward) doctor-boy who told us to go home. “You’re having a miscarriage,” he told us unceremoniously.

The news of miscarriage is a crushing thing. So much emotion is tied into a pregnancy, and with a miscarriage, expectant joy lurches into grief. We hadn’t even had the opportunity to process being pregnant before it was taken away, and many of our friends and family didn’t know, having obeyed the “12-week rule”.

At the time, Lucy and I were running a media business together. We were booked to do a video shoot in North London the next day, and, to my lasting regret, I considered maintaining the client relationship more important than staying at home with Lucy. I travelled eighty miles very early in the morning with our good friend Alexandra, while Lucy stayed at home.

Early in the day, Lucy called me from the hospital. She had checked herself back in, having self-diagnosed as having an ectopic pregnancy1. It took the hospital almost a whole day to confirm her suspicions.

I continued with the shoot, nervously awaiting her next call, when she would hopefully have some test results. She did eventually call with the news that they were rushing her into surgery in the next couple of hours. I packed up the kit and raced down the M3 to Salisbury, cursing the 50mph average speed cameras the whole way. I was trying to get to the hospital to see her before she went in.

(Narrator: he didn’t.)

When I arrived, Lucy was in theatre and I could do nothing but wait for her to be wheeled out. After a couple of hours she came out, in an office chair2. She seemed okay, possibly because she had finally been allowed to eat something3. After a short while I had to leave her overnight in the hospital, so I headed home, shellshocked but thankful I still had my wife.

So far I’ve only outlined my own experience of the day — partly to spare you unnecessarily grim details and also to respect Lucy’s privacy. I will say that after becoming certain that she was having an ectopic pregnancy, she had to wait a very long time before this was confirmed. She couldn’t eat or drink anything, and even though she had friends come to visit her (including a couple of hospital docs we knew), she was feeling quite alone and growing increasingly anxious. She knew rather too much about the dangers of ectopic pregnancies from her research.

Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

It’s ten years since that night, but recalling it is still painful. We’ve not been able to have children since — a further op in 2018 confirmed that Lucy’s remaining tube is damaged and unlikely to function.

The past ten years have not been easy for us, but there is one thing that has stood firm through this journey together: our faith.

It’s often levelled at Christians that their faith is just a crutch for weak people to make it through life. I can accept this — but rather than seeing it as a weakness, I kind of see it as the point. Most of us (perhaps all) need the crutch, and even in the midst of darkness and pain, we found that God was there with us.

This is what the song is about: questioning, honestly, in the midst of pain. But also, an acknowledgment that we are not alone, and that we have hope. That’s what Christianity is about after all.

We don’t know if we will ever have our own children (at our age, the chances are getting slimmer) but we do know that our story is one of faithfulness through heartbreak.

But sometimes, it’s easier to put it into song:

BTW, this is just a demo we recorded during our first ever band jam. The track is currently in production for release as a single, and we’ll release a couple more posts about the music writing and recording process before releasing it direct to Substack.

Thanks for reading and listening, it means a lot.

Graham and For What Joy

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

— Psalm 30:11-12

PS. You may be thinking that this post was just a massive overshare. And you might be right… maybe that’s why artists normally write songs not blog posts!

We do both want to thank all of our friends and family who have walked with us through this journey. ❤️

But for some reason we’ve collectively decided that this dank, miserable time of year when we’re at our fattest and most penny-less is the best time to inflict ourselves with goals and dreams. It’s the perfect time to kickstart the next 12 months of grind!

For what joy?

Consider this your permission to spend an extra hour in bed tomorrow morning.

Inevitably, I have actually been dreaming about what this year might look like for our little music collective. Here are a couple of thoughts:

EP recording

I’ve got five tracks that are drawing close to being ready to record. The songs cover topics including death, grief, miscarriage, and faith — wait, don’t go! I promise it’s more upbeat than it sounds.

For each song, I’d like to do a Substack-first release around 6 weeks ahead of streaming, so subscribers here will be the first to listen. Perhaps when three or four singles have been released, we’ll release the full EP (in summer?)².

I learnt a bunch of lessons when recording Beneath the Stars before Christmas. Not least: having a hard deadline is handy! (Ain’t nobody moving Christmas). So I’ll be working on some milestones — but not yet, as this is January and I don’t hate myself that much.

Live music

I think live music is the best way to experience real, authentic human performance. No screens, no scrolling, no skipping tracks, no AI, just people doing what they’ve done for thousands of years. With beer, hopefully.

Back in October, I did an acoustic preview of a few songs with Zoë for some friends in a living room. This year, I’d love to do a couple of live performances with the whole group in London somewhere, and maybe some exclusive mini-performances straight to Substack too.

More music with friends

2025 was for me a year of collaboration — I wrote about this on my other Substack. In 2026, I want even more!

More walks in the country

Unrelated but related — I live in the centre of London, but a lot of my writing and thinking is inspired while out in nature. So I need to get out more (says my wife).

Quick announcement

Due to a cockup with our music distributor, the Beneath the Stars lyric video has finally been uploaded to our new VEVO account on YouTube. Just in time for Christmas 2026 (facepalm).

Happy New Year!
Graham x

1. Here in the Northern Hemisphere anyway. My sister is living her best life in the New Zealand summertime.

2. If you’re wondering, releasing singles first and then combining those into an EP release is one suggested approach to giving your songs the best chance of being ‘playlisted’ - i.e. making it on to the Spotify/Apple playlists which theoretically increases discovery. I don’t want to care about that stuff, but more people discovering our music would be cool.

1. Today our debut track is live on your favourite streamer! Just search For What Joy and we should come up. Favourite + listen + playlist + share! 🙏

2. We’ve got a new lyric video animated by the wonderful Emily Downe - the video will be on YouTube soon but for now you can enjoy it right here on Substack.

3. I’m also excited to announce that you can buy a very limited edition print of Emily’s gorgeous artwork, complete with signed certificate, on our new shop. Only 30 available!

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There’s more to come in the new year, but for now, have a wonderful Christmas.

Graham
For What Joy x

Notes

Somehow, our debut release ended up being a Christmas track. Or possibly a neo carol. Are we the first band in history to do this? Might we be the last? Well, don’t worry; we don’t only make Christmas songs1.

Although we’ve been working on other (non-Christmas!) songs for much of the year, I only started writing this one in November, which any seasoned pro will tell you is far too close to Christmas to do anything meaningful with.

But maybe we can just ignore the marketing (or lack thereof) and just stick the song on, turn the volume up, and nod along while drinking something mulled and hot2.

1. Lyrics are below, and there’s also a lyric video coming soon3 so I’ll share that once it’s live.

2. You can download the MP3 to put on your iPod shuffle (or import to your music app) here. In future, downloads will likely be just for paid subscribers, but this is your Christmas gift from us. You’re welcome, Tiny Tim.

3. The release will be on streaming platforms next Friday — but I plan to put all releases on Substack earlier for our subscribers4.

4. Later I’ll drop a BTS5 about how the song came about, dig into the lyrics a bit, and the writing/recording process with Zoë and Pete.

5. Remember, thanks to the 12 Days of Christmas you are legally allowed to listen to Christmas music all the way up to the 5th of January.

Thank you for listening! It means the world to us. Please share with anyone who you think would enjoy this song.

And, of course - Happy Christmas x :)

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Lyrics

Verse

Generations waiting for dawn
Generations longing for the son
Wanderers in shadow lands
Wondering when the night will pass

Voice in the dark, my name
No more will I be afraid

Chorus

Lift your head, o come — rejoice!
Hear his approach, angelic hosts
Prince of peace, with wounds that heal
Light of the world, Immanuel

Verse

Blessed daughter favoured of all
The virgin shall conceive and bear a son
Sing aloud, o barren one
Nothing is impossible with God

Voice in the dark, my name
No more will I be ashamed

Chorus

Lift your head, o come — rejoice!
Hear his approach, angelic hosts
Prince of peace, with wounds that heal
Light of the world, Immanuel

Chorus

Sing for joy, a child is born
Light from above, eternal hope
For those who live beneath the stars
Morning has come, our strength and song

Liner notes

• Lyrics: Graham Ormiston

• Composers: Graham Ormiston, Pete Mills, Zoë Grace Wang

• Vocals: Zoë Grace Wang

• Additional vocals: Naomi Wang

• Keys: Pete Mills

• Drums: Riley Van Der Merwe

• Bass/Guitars: Graham Ormiston

• Production, Mixing and Mastering: Graham Ormiston

• Recorded at: 9M Studios, TBN UK Studios

• Artwork: Emily Downe

Introducing For What Joy1.

We’re a neo-soul collective made up of friends in London. Songs are written by me, , but we work through the ideas together in the studio.

Psst - if you just wanna hear some music, scooch down to the bottom where I’ll drop a short sample from some of our studio rehearsals.

Me, me, me, me, me

I’ll intro the others shortly, but bear with me while I talk about myself for a minute (as much as it goes against my nature).

I was raised as a classical musician in a musical household (gran, dad, mum all play piano, three sisters who all play at least one instrument). I played piano for a bit, quit (a huge regret I’m only just recovering from) and played trumpet from about age 8.

At secondary school I discovered jazz music and never looked back. I chose design over music at university (hedging my bets) but ended up with a music scholarship (at Brunel, not much to rave about) and was in nine bands at one point, doing up to three rehearsals some evenings. These included a couple of big bands, a covers band (“Soul Direction”), and a hip-hop funk band, (“The Common Moral Cause”).

Ah, the glory days.

After a while I moved away from London, and lost touch with most of my music groups. Work took over, and although I carried on playing (mostly guitar and piano by this point), music took the back seat.

Until…

Last year I got laid off and turned 40, and somehow that combo—combined with the encouragement of friends—brought a bunch of songs out of me. Since uni I’ve experienced grief, cancer, miscarriage, debt… and all of this started tumbling out of me in one go.

I learned that contrary to my previous belief, I can write lyrics - I just need to hear someone else sing them to realise they sound good. So when I met Zoë (more on her in a sec) she really helped to draw the words out of me.

And so, For What Joy was born.

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My friends (the band)

2025 has been a year of collaboration for me, pushing away from the always-online mentality, trying to do everything myself, and instead finding ways to hang out and make things happen in person as much as possible. It’s been a joy.

Zoë - lead vocals, chief positivity officer

Zoë Grace Wang () is a creative fireball of positivity. She released her debut EP, Forming Shapes, in 2024 and it’s wonderful.

She’s a serious up and coming talent, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m hitching my rusty wagon to her star.

Naomi - violin, harmonies

Naomi Wang is Zoë’s sister - they are a very musical family. She’s super skilled on piano and violin, but when these sisters sing harmonies together, oh me oh my! Chef’s kiss 👌

Pete - keys

Pete is a real musician. By which I mean that he knows what the notes are doing and why they are there.

If I’m totally honest, I’m not always sure why the notes are there, I just know when I’m glad that they are.

Jono - guitar

Jono Thorne is another up and coming talent. He’s like a cross between Robert Pattinson and Tom Misch.

He’s just successfully crowdfunded his first EP, Dust, and is in the studio at the moment pulling it together. He’s the most prolific songwriter I’ve ever met, and seems to have a new song every time I see him. But I don’t hold that against him.

Tobias - drums

I only just learned that Tobias’ first instrument is keys. This was a surprise to me, because he’s so bloody good on drums that he has no right to be even better on another instrument.

Riley - drums / percussion

I actually don’t have any cool session photos2 with Riley because he’s been busy getting married instead of coming to the studio (priorities, dude) but he’s hopefully going to feature on our first release, which is a cheeky Christmas song of all things, coming in a week or two.

He’s a lovely guy, knows coffee better than most cartels, and ‘runs cold’ — meaning you’ll likely find him wearing an artic-rated puffer jacket in September in the UK.

Substack: a sustainable model for musicians?

Maybe.

I read recently that you need something like 25k streams to raise the same funds as selling a single t shirt.

Most musicians write and play music because they have can’t help themselves. It’s not the pay that attracts them, it’s that something inside is bursting to get out. Like in the film Alien.

I’ve started this Substack / newsletter because the economics of music are broken. I’m following the example of and have joined the MAD records collective with a view to setting up a place for fans of our music to connect directly with us and the music they love.

You can of course subscribe to this Substack for free, but paying fans will get a bunch of extra things, such as:

• behind the scenes access

• free hi quality MP3/lossless downloads of songs to keep - ahead of streaming release

• special unique recordings

• ask us anything

• merch discounts

• signed things

You’ll get stuff, and we’ll benefit by being able to commit to more studio time, produce more stuff, and maybe even eat three square meals. It’s a win win win!

We’ll be sharing our influences, new music we’re enjoying, best vinyl finds, gigs we attend, new songs, snippets, studio sessions, you name it.

Finally: Rage against the machine

A final note 🎵 but one worth making these days.

I have a complicated relationship with technology. I’ve worked in technology for decades, and have loved working with computers since breaking and fixing my dad’s 486 over and over again to make it go faster.

But as a creative, technology is heading in a direction I do not enjoy.

AI may be amazing for our future, we’ll see. But for generative/creative use, I personally feel it is a technology we don’t need.

There isn’t a problem that is being solved. Instead, this technology is actively taking something away from us: the creative act. Creating is a human endeavour that helps us to tell our story. Why do we need machines to do that for us, or to simplify the process?

So here it is: I’ll never use AI to write lyrics, chords, or to play our instruments for us.

Instead, my mantra for this group is simply this:

• Real music

• Real writing

• Real people

• Real stories

• and… live music whenever possible and feasible

I think this will lead to Good Times.

I hope you’ll join us.

Graham x

🎧 A medley of our studio rehearsals

Well, you either skipped to the bottom (fair play) or you read the whole post (gold stars for you). As promised, here’s a little medley of a few rough studio rehearsals to give you a little taster of some of the tunes coming soon!

Thanks for listening!

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