Re-arrival. Second Thought is back! I thought it would be fitting to open this entry with the same words I chose nearly two years ago, upon commencing work on Safernoc, as not so long ago I mentioned this year would pick up where 2009 left off.
In November 2009 I decided I wanted Second Thought to be a more productive project which wasn’t constrained by the ‘writing and recording an album every two years’ format, and embarked on what became known as the experimental series, released throughout 2010. Of course, being me, I overdid it and realised that I didn’t actually enjoy working in that way at all, so comfortably sectioned off the year’s releases as side-projects. Moreso, I’ll be using compositional and production ideas discovered last year to full effect on coming albums. With that said, chances are you won’t really hear about the experimental series from now on. Now it’s back to albums.
It’s time to reveal the sounds of Safernoc to everyone – a 6 minute teaser video containing clips of each track can be found here. I’m still incredibly proud of this album, it’s light years ahead of the first two in terms of composition and production. I find it very evocative myself. Hopefully this will be out in the next three to four weeks. Before then I’ll be posting a mix of inspirations for the album, and the Syophonic EP will be out as a free download, both to help promote the record. I’m kind of sick of the whole promotional campaign thing in some ways, but I’d already planned all of this so I thought I’d go along with it. It’s quite nice in a way, reminds me of when I released Purlieu.
Ignoring the Safernoc follow-up, which I’ve already mentioned is nearly complete and ready for the end of the year, I’ve been working on tracks for what will follow that, and decided to revisit the score I wrote for my friend’s film, Glacial Art, last autumn. It’s compositionally very strong, so I’ve been working some of that into ‘full’ tracks. All rather fun. I’ve also been playing with some algorithmic composition software and generative music software to help add sounds and samples to that record, they’re very good for between-track sections. Work there is coming along nicely and that album will hopefully be finished by the summer, in time to start sending off demos around the time the Safernoc follow-up comes out. So I’m slowly regaining a more sensible momentum. Hopefully when I have a job, it’ll all fall into place again, as I’ll have less time to sit around making music!
I hope everybody had a lovely festive period. A rest in Hinckley did me the world of good and I feel utterly refreshed and alive again, for the first time since… as long as I can remember, actually. Things are looking up and I’m hoping the future will be as bright as it seems at the moment!
enofa 