Christopher Simpson's residency at Metal Liverpool provided the platform for cohering a collection of songs, written over a number of years in response to the loss of his mother, into a song cycle entitled, 'Very Present Tense'. Charting the passage of a grief it is a testament of love and a statement of becoming. Referencing musical idioms like blues and Rwandan folk, acknowledging his Irish and Rwandan musical forbears, the songs were arranged in collaboration with Tom Havelock to create an intimate harmonic landscape of loss, love and hope. He premiered the work with an ensemble of musicians comprising piano, string quartet, double bass, trumpet and saxophone in a tender and inspirational performance at Edge Hill Station.