A local band has formed to raise awareness of the victims of the war in Ukraine.

The members of The Sound Paradox don’t want their names to be publicised as they want all the music and video to speak for itself about the war.

The group’s leader told us: “I had known our guitarist for a few years coming across him in a local pub where music was played occasionally.At the end of last summer we met again after a long absence and listened to an amazing local guitarist who played some Pink Floyd numbers amongst others. We exchanged telephone numbers and then met a few weeks later at his house to play some music.He had an amazing instrument collection, in fact the only other place I had so many guitars was in a musical instrument shop.

“Then in the December I was playing tennis at Kingsbridge Lawn Tennis Club and was introduced to a new member with whom I was paired that morning. I must have mentioned that I was going to have a saxophone lesson the following day and he told me that he played bass guitar.

“We exchanged emails and later that day I contacted him to invite him to my music studio. We had so much in common musically that I told him about the other friend with the guitars and I said”Let’s form a band” We had our first session together on January 4 this year; the band was formed.

“The name came a short time later. He plays 12 string guitar, assorted electric and acoustic guitars as well as mandolin, another member plays bass as well as acoustic and electric guitars and sings backing Vox.I play mandolin, acoustic guitar, occasional electric guitar, fretless bass (when required), harmonica, alto saxophone and some percussion as well as lead Vox.

“We soon realised that it was our combined passion for seventies Progressive Rock that was the starting point to our musical journey.Each one of us loves Pink Floyd. There is, however quite an eclectic mix of music which we share. Jazz, blues, electronica, classical and variations there of eg jazzrock/fusion folk rock and middle-eastern jazz to name but a few.

“When the conflict in Ukraine started we all felt very angry with the situation realising that the unfortunate population of that peace-loving democratic country were being forced to flee. “There were at the beginning and have since been,dreadful atrocities inflicted upon these innocent people. We wanted to try to show our support and our bass-player composed the basic demo of the track we finally published this week, he also found some amazing images.

“We met in my studio for weeks,where each one of us contributed musical ideas adding certain instruments and different parts, recording them in layers until we were happy with the end result. Finally on April 1, just before 6pm having been in the studio since 11am, we finally finished the recording and had a playback. We were overjoyed with the result acting like teenagers.

“I then took the results to a professional sound engineer and the finished track was uploaded to Youtube on Monday April 11.

“I have always dreamed of one day being in a band as have the others and in our sixties we finally made it happen.”

To watch the video Lament for Ukraine you can visit https://bit.ly/TSP_Lament