Giovanni Gaetani

A letter to Jamie Reddington (AKA Sound of Fractures) after his Alone Together event at the FUJIFILM House of Photography in London on 8 October 2026.

London, 9 October 2026, 00.48 am

What am I doing at my laptop on the terrace on a Thursday night, when it’s raining and only 11°C outside?

I’m writing a letter to a very special person: Jamie Reddington, better known as Sound of Fractures.

Alone Together.

2,200 characters on Instagram won’t be enough to tell this story. In fact, I suspect that even 2,200 words won’t be enough, and that’s why I decided to write a story on my blog.

And it doesn’t matter if the Instagram algorithm punishes me, if only a few people click on the link to read this post, or if even fewer finish it. None of that matters. Why?

Because what happened yesterday deserves to be remembered, and writing is remembering. And so I write. And in one year’s time – or two, or five, or twenty – I will look back at this story and think that it was actually the beginning of something beautiful.

I have this growing feeling that some of the most beautiful moments of my life are happening right here and right now — now that I have resigned from my 9-to-5 job to live fully as an artist, a community builder and a guide.

Everything is happening today. Four years after my first coming out, one year after my second, and just a few weeks before my third — and ultimate — coming out.

Most importantly, I am writing this story just six months after I thought I would take my own life, back in April 2026. But that’s another story for another time.

[If you’re reading this story and thinking that life isn’t worth living, please get in touch. Come over to my place. Let me cook you a vegan dinner, and we can talk about everything, simply enjoy being together.]

I asked for a change.

At the beginning of 2026, I felt something needed to change in my life. I had a weird sense of foreboding, but also of excitement for what awaited me next.

On 22 January, I shared a story announcing that this would be the year of my transition. See photo below.

No, it was not a gender transition, although sometimes I dreamt — and still dream — of living in a female body.

Still, it was an equally important transition for me: from being the person society wanted me to be — a respectable, career-driven, closeted and masked man — to becoming the person I actually wanted to be — my authentic, creative, divergent and passionate self, out of the closets and unmasked.

I had spent 9 years studying for a PhD in Philosophy that didn’t get me anywhere; I spent 9 years working for charities and NGOs, building a career, collecting qualifications, doing everything I was supposed to do to become a successful, respectable member of society. And although I am incredibly grateful for that journey, something inside me was asking for more. Always asking for more. Or perhaps for less. Less structure, less security, fewer expectations, and more space for creativity, music, writing, community, art and all those things that make me feel genuinely alive.

In a nutshell: more space for myself, for my beautiful, neurodivergent and creative brain.

The universe replied.

I had no idea how difficult that transition would be.

In February, I lost both my job and my lifetime partner – more on this in my upcoming novel. The months that followed were a rather spectacular mixture of personal crises, diagnosis, discoveries, extraordinary encounters, financial worries and moments of happiness that I had never experienced before.

Somewhere along the way, BHAN, the little rave community I had created with my best friend Carlo, started becoming something much bigger than a series of events. It became a project, a purpose, a community, a chosen family, and increasingly the centre of the life I was trying to build.

And then I met Jamie.

Earlier this year, in June, while attending Anjunadeep Explorations in Albania, I met Ole, a lovely guy from Germany.

On 30 August, he messaged me out of the blue on WhatsApp (see below) telling me about Jamie, the artist behind Sound of Fractures, and his concept called Alone Together.

Ole suggested I should check it out because he thought I would like it. He was absolutely right.

I looked into the project and immediately felt a connection with it. The idea of using music not simply as something to listen to, but as a way to create, reflect, feel and connect with other human beings resonated deeply with me.

After all, this is precisely what I’ve been trying to do with BHAN, although through a series of different musical languages — less ambient, more deep house and techno. But BHAN is not about the kind of music — it is about how you approach it.

And today, while making my art during Nica’s set, that’s what I realised, putting this concept in a poem.

Music is a vehicle:
you need to climb aboard
and let her take you
wherever she wants.

Since I started raving and began my psychonaut journey in 2023, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the relationship between music, presence and human connection, and by the possibility of creating environments where people can temporarily forget the roles they play in society and simply exist. So when I discovered that Sound of Fractures was coming to the FUJIFILM House of Photography in London, I knew I had to be there.

Flashback: my hometown VS my home.

But before I tell you about yesterday, I need to explain where my head and heart have been over the past few weeks.

I recently returned from Gaeta, my hometown in Italy, where I spent ten days on a writing retreat, working on my upcoming novel Don’t Tell Your Parents, while launching three new BHAN events and organising the first-ever BHAN in my hometown, with nine young queer people, all still in the closet.

Going back to Gaeta is becoming an increasingly complicated experience for me. It’s a beautiful place, one of the most beautiful places I know, and I will always carry its sea, its colours, its smells and its contradictions inside me. But it’s also a place where I no longer feel particularly welcome. I spent the first 33 years of my life trying to escape the limitations of the world I grew up in, and now, almost 10 years after moving to London, returning there can feel like stepping back into a version of myself that no longer exists.

The writing retreat was productive, and I came back with the final draft of my novel, which will come out in both Italian and English before the end of the year — but emotionally, the retreat took a lot out of me.

Back to London. Back home.

Yes, London, this extraordinary city that has given me so much freedom, the city where I found myself. But it also the city that demands you always a big sacrifice of time and enegy in exchange.

At the end of 2026, I will be leaving my job as Social Media and Online Fundraising Manager at a small charity, having realised that I cannot do this anymore. Life is short, and I don’t want to wait for a cancer diagnosis to start living mine to the fullest.

My time is here and now. So I’ve made my decision: in 2027, I’m going to devote my whole self to BHAN, my writing and my communities.

I also decided to launch my guiding practice and see if anyone wants to walk a few kilometres with me through the streets of London, so that hopefully they will find themselves here just like I found myself.

Yes, I have some savings that will help me survive for a few months if all goes wrong. I have absolutely no guarantee that any of this will work financially. But it doesn’t really matter. Because I feel that I am on the right path.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working almost obsessively on BHAN: organising events, finding venues, talking to DJs, developing the BHAN Assembly, building partnerships, creating content, sorting out insurance, managing money and trying to turn a beautiful idea into something sustainable. Sometimes I feel like I’m building the future I’ve always wanted. Other times I wonder whether I’m simply losing my mind.

And yet, despite all of this, I am the happiest I have ever been. How is that even possible?

Before the music started.

This was roughly my state of mind when I arrived at the FUJIFILM House of Photography yesterday evening, around 6 pm.

I had bought tickets for myself and Luke, one of the beautiful human beings who recently entered my life through BHAN. Luke is now a BHAN Ambassador and a member of our emerging BHAN Assembly, but those titles don’t really capture what he means to me. He is becoming a friend, a role model and a guide, someone whose kindness, curiosity and life experience I deeply admire. Our lovely Eugenia from BHAN also joined us, while Anshul, who was supposed to come, unfortunately couldn’t make it.

The evening started beautifully. The moment I got in, I felt I was at the right place, at the right time.

I immediately bought Jamie’s deck of conversation cards. And then I couldn’t resist buying his beautiful postcard books too. Thanks, Noa, for the discount — which I hadn’t asked for, but you probably saw in my eyes that I haven’t exactly been rolling in money lately.

Before the music had even properly begun, I was already meeting interesting people, having conversations and feeling that familiar excitement I get when I find myself surrounded by creative, curious, open-minded humans.

There were queer people, artists, music lovers, people who seemed genuinely interested in understanding one another. I don’t want to romanticise everyone in the room, of course, because I barely knew most of them, but there was something about the atmosphere that made connecting feel unusually easy. Nobody seemed particularly interested in impressing anyone else. People were simply there to experience something together.

Nica’s set: Trust.

Then the lights went off, and we all sat on the floor.

Nica (she/they) introduced the ambient set they were about to play, called “Trust”. They told us about the inspiration behind it, the meaning of the images projected on the screen behind them, and how their parents’ Bahá’í faith had influenced their music.

The moment the live music began, I instinctively started taking things out of my backpack – books, notebooks, pens, pencils and markers, stickers, photos, wristbands – and then started creating my live art.

I sat on the floor, opened my orange notebook and proceeded to sparpagliare all my things around me. I don’t know how to translate sparpagliare properly into English, but imagine someone emptying the contents of an overexcited stationery shop onto the floor. That was me, as you can see in the photo above and below.

I started drawing, writing, experimenting with colours and shapes, without any particular intention of producing something beautiful. I simply wanted to create something meaningful, and see what would happen if I allowed the music to guide my hands.

And something wonderful did happen.

I started losing track of time. I wasn’t particularly concerned about what the people around me thought of this grown man wearing black and red, sitting on the floor surrounded by orange stationery, nor was I interested in documenting the experience for social media. I was just enjoying myself, creating something for the pleasure of creating it.

Jamie’s set: Alone Together.

Then Jamie took over from Nika and started playing.

His beautiful postcards, filled with messages and reflections, began appearing on the tables, adding another dimension to the experience.

This is why I like Jamie so much: because, beyond being a musician, he is an artist, a writer, a creator. He understands the power of art, words and creativity. And that’s why I’d love to collaborate with him to create something beautiful together — perhaps the first ambient BHAN ever? Stay tuned!

All these thoughts were flowing through my mind. I returned to my notebook and continued writing and drawing, but something had changed. What had started as a playful creative exercise became something much more intense. Words, images and ideas started coming out of me almost uncontrollably. It felt like a download, as though someone had opened a tap somewhere inside my brain and everything I had been carrying around for weeks was finally finding a way out.

A quote comes back to mind as I write this. It’s the epigraph to Rick Rubin’s beautiful book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, written by the American painter Robert Henri:

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”

And that’s exactly how I felt during Jamie’s set. I wasn’t trying to make art. I was simply in that wonderful state, and art became inevitable.

I have experienced moments of complete immersion before, particularly when writing or dancing, but this was different. For a while, I genuinely stopped feeling any separation between myself and what I was creating. I wasn’t thinking about what the artwork meant, whether it was good or bad, or what I would do with it afterwards. I wasn’t even particularly aware of myself as the person producing it. I was simply part of the creative process, in the same way that my body had become part of the music when I was dancing.

I wasn’t making art. I was the art.

I realise how pretentious this sounds, and I can already imagine some of my friends rolling their eyes, but I honestly don’t know how else to describe it. I was fully, completely, totally immersed in the moment. And for someone with ADHD, whose mind is often running in seventeen different directions at once, that feeling of complete presence in one single spot — the here — and one single moment — the now — is almost indescribable.

Get up and dance.

Then, at some point, the music became too beautiful to experience while sitting down. My body wanted to move. I started stimming, drumming with my hands on my legs to Jamie’s drumless songs — but eventually I couldn’t resist anymore. I stood up and started dancing, completely by myself.

I don’t know whether anyone else joined me, whether people were watching or whether I looked ridiculous. It didn’t matter, because I felt safe there, wearing my green sunflower lanyard, with my ADHD feeling increasingly like AuDHD.

I just needed to dance, in the same way an autistic kid needs to stim.

Those of you who know BHAN will understand why moments like these mean so much to me. After spending months — actually, years by now — trying to convince people that a dancefloor can be a place of presence, healing and connection rather than just a pub with loud music, I found myself experiencing exactly that: a moment of pure BHAN, of pure presence, but in a completely different and unexpected setting — the FUJIFILM House of Photography, in the heart of Soho.

When the music stopped.

The music stopped, but not the event.

As the evening continued, I met even more extraordinary people, starting with the two lovely patrons of Jamie who had travelled from San Francisco.

I also met Cath, an incredible fellow ADHDer and community builder who founded The Euphoric Dance. What an amazing person she is! We started talking, and although she desperately needed to pee, we just couldn’t stop!

She told me about Camilla Sadaghna, an artist who — guess what? — came to BHAN in March to see Just Her. And then we started talking about everything, everywhere, all at once, just like people with ADHD can. Within minutes, I was already imagining inviting members of her community to BHAN — because I can already feel that they would love it.

I found myself moving from one conversation to another, meeting people from completely different walks of life and discovering unexpected connections. This is one of my favourite things about London: the possibility of entering a room full of strangers and leaving with new friendships, ideas and perspectives that you couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

The FUJIFILM House of Photography. We’ll be back.

Of course, being at the FUJIFILM House of Photography also meant discovering some magnificent pieces of technology, and I immediately fell in love with the little printers that allow you to connect your smartphone and print photographs on the spot.

I find this concept absolutely genius. We take thousands of photographs, store them somewhere in the cloud and almost never look at them again. But being able to transform a digital image into something physical, something you can hold and give to another person, feels genuinely magical to me. And that’s why — please mark my words — I am going to get my hands on one of those printers and use it more in my creative process and at BHAN.

Anyway, as it happens, yesterday I received the cover of my next novel in Italian. When I opened the gallery to print an image using the printer, that was the first thing I saw. So I printed the cover of my Italian book. And looking at that little red photograph, holding a physical image of something I have spent so much time dreaming about, writing and rewriting, I became unexpectedly emotional.

It reminded me that my books are no longer just abstract projects living somewhere inside my laptop. They’re becoming real. And — trust me — they will have real consequences in my life. The same is happening with BHAN. I can feel that it’s going to become something big, beautiful and meaningful — not only for me, but for so many people like me.

I also had the opportunity to speak with Jamie. I showed him what I had created and shared something very personal with him: that story from January 2026, when I announced my intention to change my life, printed with the same portable printer.

I left him a photograph of it for his collage of photos. A little piece of my story for his story, because I wanted him to understand how meaningful this experience had been for me. His music had accompanied me through an evening in which I had reconnected with something that has become central to my life: the desire to create without constantly worrying about the outcome.

Together Alone.

When the event ended, Luke, Eugenia and I headed to Soho for some delicious vegan pizza. Luke decided to pay for everyone because he had promised to take me out for dinner for my birthday on 13 September, but had ended up attending another birthday party instead — a friend of his turning 50. And this is how generous he is. Always.

We sat together and talked about our lives, our journeys, our experiences, our fears and dreams, and of course about BHAN. I find it extraordinary how quickly some relationships can develop when people are willing to be vulnerable and genuinely interested in one another. These are people I met through a rave community, and yet here we were, sharing things that in other circumstances might take months or years to discuss.

We also talked about how BHAN has changed our lives. And I still find this incredibly moving, because when I started the project, I was primarily trying to create something I needed myself. A place where I could dance freely, meet people without the usual social expectations, and experience the sense of belonging I had struggled to find in conventional clubbing environments, and more generally in London.

Hearing other people describe how this little experiment has affected their lives reminds me that something much bigger than me is happening. I might be the person organising the events, but BHAN belongs to the people who bring it to life.

Let’s gamble.

And then, because apparently an evening of profound conversations, ambient music and beautiful human connections wasn’t quite enough, I had a very ADHD idea of mine, and suggested we go to a casino. Yes, a casino.

A little context: I used to be a semi-professional poker player, playing 24 tables online at once, during the golden era of online poker.

I still love poker today, and I’m familiar with that world. I know how casinos work, and I certainly don’t consider them particularly uplifting or queer places. Quite the opposite, in fact. They can be places of sadness, loneliness and desperation, where people keep chasing the possibility of winning against the odds while losing much more than money. But I had this completely ridiculous idea: what if we went in, put £10 on the roulette and, if we won, used the money to buy something for the Temple of BHAN?

A dream in the making: the Temple of BHAN.

The Temple of BHAN is this dream of mine. A stable venue for BHAN, where people can come and go to meet old and new members of the community, and simply being in the moment. Not only through dancing, but also through food, storytelling and silence.

[If you like that, then join our next Soup & Stories dinner on 22 October.]

You see, I’ve been developing another slightly insane plan of mine: the BHAN portable, fragmentabled sound system.

I want to get 6 JBL Xtreme 4 portable speakers (so far I have 2), connect them together (because 6 is the maximum you can connect through the Auracast system) and create a sound system that would allow me to organise small BHAN gatherings at home or outdoors.

I love the idea of bringing music and people together without necessarily needing a traditional venue, expensive equipment or complicated logistics. On top of that, having 6 separate speakers means that if someone wants to find a quieter corner to be here and now on their own, they can.

Six speakers, some vegan food, a group of beautiful humans and the freedom to dance wherever we are: this is the Temple of BHAN I am dreaming of.

And after my rather obsessive research into portable speakers, I’ve decided that the Xtreme 4 is simply the best thing ever invented. If JBL wants to sponsor my little revolution, they know where to find me.

And so we gambled.

Anyway, we went to the casino, and after two rounds of betting we lost almost all our chips. Eugenia bet her last chip on number 8. Luke decided to bet on his favourite number instead: 7. A number that means something to him because he was born in 1977.

And 7 came out. We won £160. Just like that!

Now, most people in that room would have kept betting until they lost everything. That’s how casinos work — in the long run, the house always wins, and you always lose. But not us.

The universe gave us those £160 for a new JBL speaker, so Luke took his chips and cashed them out. Then, as if it was the most natural thing ever, he gave me £150, keeping just £10 for himself.

In loving memory of Matt Palmer.

Luke told me that this was something he and his friend Matt used to do all the time on their nights out. They would go to a casino, bet a few pounds and either win or lose everything. He decided to keep £10 from his winnings as a memory of those nights with Matt.

The same Matt he used to rave and party with. The same Matt who struggled with depression and lost his battle in 2013. The same Matt behind the Matt Palmer Trust, a charity I feel so close to and with whom I’d love to organise a BHAN event soon.

This is Luke. A friend who continues to campaign for better mental health in memory of the friend he lost many years ago. And a friend who is now investing in another friend’s dream, because at the end of the day, Matt, Luke and I share the same dream: a community of kind people. A space filled with music, where everyone can feel safe enough to let go and be their true selves. And, ultimately, a better world for everyone, regardless of who you are, where you come from or where you’re heading.

On my way home, on the Bakerloo line, I was incredibly touched and also laughing at the complete absurdity of the situation. Here I am, trying to build a community based on kindness, presence, connection and a more conscious relationship with the world, and somehow I’ve ended up funding part of it through a roulette win in a casino. The contradictions of modern life are magnificent, aren’t they?

What now?

I will now wait patiently for the Black Friday sales before buying the speaker. Because, yes, capitalism is going to kill us all, but also capitalism is giving us this amazing technology that allows us to bring people together through music and art, just like Jamie did yesterday.

By the time I got home, I was exhausted, happy and full of ideas. And of course, instead of simply appreciating the experience and going to bed like a normal person, my brain had already started imagining how I could bring something similar into the world of BHAN.

I want to organise an ambient BHAN at the Temple of BHAN, my home in north-west London, or again at the FUJIFILM House of Photography, who knows?

The funny thing is that, before leaving the event, I was chatting with a lovely member of staff, Denise, and at some point I asked her who I should speak to about organising an event at the venue. “Me!” she replied, revealing that she was actually the manager. And guess what? She’s from a city very close to my hometown in Italy. How small is this world?

The first Ambient BHAN.

It doesn’t matter where, but I know an ambient BHAN is going to happen.

I want to create something intimate, something meaningful, perhaps just a handful of people, with candles, vegan food, notebooks, pencils, sheets of white paper and a warm, welcoming atmosphere. I’d love to invite Jamie, Nica, Wukah and Camilla to mix or play their live ambient sets, and create a space where people can listen, draw, reflect, connect and experience being alone together.

Not every BHAN needs to involve dancing for three hours. The more I think about what we’re creating, the more I realise that the core of BHAN has never been a particular genre of music or a particular event format. It’s the possibility of creating the conditions for people to feel present, safe, connected and free.

Back to square one.

And this brings me back to the beginning of this story, and to the rather uncomfortable question I’ve been asking myself over the past few weeks: what am I doing with my life? Am I sure this is the right thing to do? To quit a stable job in such a crazy, saturated job market? To bet all my savings on organising events for such a niche audience of intentional ravers and spiritually aware, connected people?

Yes, I think it is the right choice — if I have a choice at all.

I’m 38 years old. AI is going to take over in a few years’ time. My job as a Social Media Manager will be replaced by an AI bot. You simply type in what kind of post you want, and the bot does everything for you. So why should I keep living that shitty 9-to-5 life that was killing me — even outside working hours?

I’d rather spend my time writing stories like this, creating art and events for the sake of it, hoping that like-minded people will appreaciate it, and support me to keep creating.

Until we meet again.

I don’t believe that things happen for a reason. I don’t believe the universe has a plan for me, or that some invisible force is guiding me towards my destiny. I’m an atheist, a humanist, but also a nihilist — and I find life beautiful precisely because it has no inherent meaning. But I do believe that we can give meaning to life by creating stories around the things that happen to us, just like I am doing right now — and that was the theme of my second book, Against Nihilism, which I’d love to translate into English at some point.

I have no idea where I’ll be a year from now. I don’t know whether BHAN will grow into something sustainable, whether I’ll be able to make a living in London through my creative work, or whether I’ll eventually have to return to my hometownr or to a more conventional job. I hope not, but I’m not naive enough to ignore the possibility.

What I do know is that I don’t want to leave London. I don’t want to give up on this experiment. And I don’t want to look back at this period of my life wishing I had been brave enough to try.

Thank you all.

So, in conclusion, thank you, Ole, for introducing me to Sound of Fractures. Thank you, Jamie, Nika, Carole and the rest of the team for creating such a beautiful experience. Thank you to the extraordinary people I met yesterday, whose names and stories I hope will become part of mine. And thank you, Luke and Eugenia, for an evening that started with ambient music and ended with a rather improbable contribution to the Temple of BHAN.

Above all, thank you, London, for continuing to make me feel at home, even when I don’t know how I’m going to afford staying here.

Life is beautiful. Complicated, frightening, absurd, occasionally heartbreaking, but so damn beautiful.

And I am going to make it, whatever that means. Not because I’m certain of success, or because I think the world owes me anything, but because I finally feel that I’m moving in the right direction.

Yesterday, for a few hours, I wasn’t worried about becoming someone. I was simply myself. There and then.

And that was enough.

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© Giovanni Gaetani, 2026. All rights reserved.

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