He covered his ears. He couldn't cope. "I half-read them," admits Mara TK on the phone after finishing the school run on a drizzly Monday morning. "My girlfriend read them to me and I blocked my ears ... I didn't realise exactly how they felt. It's amazing." His peers rave about him because the 36-year-old is a musician's musician, one who has been plugging away in the shadows for years. "Musically, I think I've been a bit of an outlier - quite niche," the former Electric Wire Hustle frontman admits. SUPPLIED Mara TK's album Bad Meditation is receiving plaudits from his peers.