1421 is the year that Zheng He set sail from China and discovered America.

The reason it's significant is because July 2005 is the 600th anniversary of zheng he's maiden voyage. To celebrate his achievements the Singapore Tourism Board and Pico Art international Singapore, have put together an exhibition full of paintings and artifacts describing his voyages.

'Ian, was specially commissioned to write music for the zones in the exhibition'

The music takes you on a journey through periods of Zheng He's life, from a little boy in the village through to him becoming grand eunuch. Eventually emperor Zhu Di made him admiral and told him to build a fleet of 300 ships, some of which were said to be up to 450 feet long, 5 times larger than that of the European ships.

These tracks that Ian wrote were then put on a CD titled "1421 setting sail" with bonus tracks from Dave Packer, which is on sale at the 1421 exhibition in Singapore.

Gavin Menzies book "1421 the year China discovered the world" goes on to explain about how he came across these ancient maps of the world. After researching his book for around 12 years, he discovered something quite remarkable. Looking at these old maps he saw islands that existed on the old Chinese maps that weren't on the maps of the Europeans at that time.
Gavin came to conclude that Zheng He had sailed from china and on to the Americas, 74 years before Columbus and Magellan supposedly found America!!!.