Jackie Morrey-Grace is a popular and familiar figure about the island, best known for her unique ear and eye-catching performance poetry and has captivated many audiences over he past couple of years with her highly individual style.

She is also a well-respected music teacher and you’ll have no doubt seen her out and about playing the trombone with the rap collective HAN-FX and the Innuendo Orchestra.

Jackie teamed up with an old friend and London-based music producer Jo Thorn, who was spending a bit of time on the island following the end of the lock down period.

Inspired by nothing more than to do something with their time, they began to work together, putting Jackie’s eclectic and rhythmic poetry to Jo’s electronic music and, after being impressed with what they came up with, they christened the partnership ’Turning Glass’.

This week, they released their second single, ’Stardust’, an atmospheric and almost eatstern-sounding piece of ambient music, and are planning on more to come in the near future

’To be honest, it was just for fun and we didn’t have any expectations,’ said Jackie.

’It was pure luck we discovered we worked really well together, so we set ourselves the goal of recording a few pieces with Gyp Buggane at Ballagroove Studios before she went back to London.

’In the end we recorded a whole load of stuff and released our first track, ’The Wildness of Birds’, a few weeks ago with some airtime on Manx Radio, which was amazing.

’The night before Jo left she recorded my vocals for my poem, ’Stardust’, then sent me a version of it put to her music, which inspired me to write another verse and the closing words to create a complete track, which I also later recorded at Gyp’s.

’We’re loving our project, though obviously it has its limitations whilst we’re in different countries!

’I love a collaboration so it’s been really positive finding someone willing and able to give my words a more accessible context and I think there’s loads of scope for interesting developments.

’We’re also steadily refining our sound and aiming to do some more jazz influenced vocals and beat poetry in the future.

’Watch this space!’

You can give both ’Stardust’ and ’The Wildness of Birds’ a listen on a host of sites including Soundcloud, Apple music and iTunes, YouTube, Spotify and Amazon music.

Elsewhere, there are plenty of Hop Tu Naa themed events kicking off, with the pick of the bunch being Crotch Lice, Half Naked Headline and the born-again Mad Daddy at the Rovers, Mae Challis and her band at the Ginger Hall’s late night bash in Sulby and Broken Rooster raising hell at the Haven in Port Erin, all on Saturday night.