A Wellington musician and his partner have been working to achieve his dream of releasing a vinyl record to “celebrate life” after a terminal brain cancer diagnosis left him facing the prospect of limited time.
Jack Brough, 22, and his partner Tamar van Niekerk, 20, first met a year ago – going to a gig for their first date.
Both creatives, the couple connected over a shared love of music.
“Naturally, we started making music together,” Brough said.
For the last six months, the duo has been working on an indie music project called Nine Lives and Narrow.
“We’re both really into sort of slow focus type music,” van Niekerk said. “And just really wanted to make some of that together.”
It’s a process they both love.
“Doing it with my partner, I feel like the ideas are sort of a bit more free flowing and it’s easier to communicate stuff,” Brough said.
Van Niekerk joked: “It does test us a little bit sometimes, but right now it’s all cool.”
In the background, however, Brough has been in a serious battle with brain cancer.
‘I don’t have a lot of time left’
Brough was born with constitutional mismatch repair deficiency (CMMRD), a rare inherited condition that causes a high risk of developing cancer. According to US government health information, 50% of people with the condition develop cancer by age 10, with 90% developing cancer by the time they reach 18.
“Throughout the past sort of decade, I’ve been getting regular monitoring to see if I’ve developed cancer,” Brough said. “Around about July of last year, I had a scan result come back that showed I had a brain tumour.”
A biopsy revealed he had glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. He then suffered a brain bleed, which required a shunt to drain fluid from his brain.
He said he was in remission for a time but he has since relapsed and the cancer recently progressed “faster than expected”.
He’s been doing everything to fight the cancer, including a new immunotherapy, which he hopes will slow the cancer’s progression.
While he remains strong in his battle, Brough acknowledged there was a chance “I don’t have a lot of time left”.
Through it all, van Niekerk has stayed by his side, giving him constant support.
“Time together has probably been the most important thing this year,” van Niekerk said.
Brough said: “The hardest times have been when I’ve not been active or well, like after I had my brain bleed, I was stuck in hospital.
“That was really, really horrible, but we stuck with each other pretty much the whole time.”
‘Leave something special behind’
One of Brough’s biggest dreams is to release a vinyl record of his own music.
With the prospect of limited time left, the couple have been pushing to achieve that dream, writing and recording two songs to be pressed onto a seven-inch record.
“It’ll be very sort of gratifying to have a physical medium that I can hold, and it’s got my music on it,” Brough said.
“With the prospect that I’m going to have a significant decline in my health, the gratification that I’ll be able to leave something special behind is a comforting thought.”
One of the songs, called Someone, is a track van Niekerk described as being about “accepting big, big feelings and big situations and just wanting to do it with someone else”.
The other, Like the Sea, is about a trip they took to Pencarrow Head.
Both play instruments on the songs, with Brough handling production and van Niekerk writing the lyrics and singing. They have used a range of instruments to make the songs, including lap-steel guitars and an old landline telephone converted into a microphone.
Van Niekerk said making music with her partner was “easy”, while Brough said the whole process was about “celebrating life” and wanted it to be “something I can finish with the person I love”.
The Wellington music community has rallied around the project, offering the couple help with production, recording, and organising a release show.
A Givealittle they set up to help make the record a reality has smashed its initial goal.
“It’s really encouraging to see that people are interested in what we’re making. It’s encouraging that so many people and strangers are interested in donating.”
For Brough, music is an “essential” part of his identity.
“I think it’s a necessity to life,” he said. “I don’t trust people who say they don’t listen to music. For me, listening to music and making music are really important.”
They plan to release the two songs under the artist name Nine Lives and Narrow before Christmas. They will be available both physically and digitally.
