In 2019 the city-state of Hong Kong was the scene of massed peaceful protests against what were felt to be repressive policies intended to reduce the city's autonomy and political freedoms. The protesters summed up their aspirations in five demands. - Full withdrawal of the extradition bill - Retracting the classification of protesters as “rioters” - Amnesty for arrested protesters - A commission of inquiry into alleged police brutality - Universal suffrage for Hong Kong elections The five tracks on Flagrant Ardour capture my emotional response to these protests and the events that followed. The songs don't claim to be "authentic": I'm from Aotearoa New Zealand and have never visited Hong Kong, despite being closely interested in the city-state for much of my life. What these songs do is imagine how I would feel and respond if I were in the same situation, subjected to the same series of events. I've released this EP as May Joy rather than under my own name because it's a collaboration in a very real sense. I could not sing these songs, and I'm grateful to the makers of the Solaria voice bank, and to Kanru Hua and the Dreamtonics team for creating Synthesizer V, so I could realise the vocal lines the way I heard them in my head. Leigh Harrison November 2024