7th December 2010

This evening I finished listening to all of my existing recordings between 1995 and 1999. After a lot of silly false popstardom, some terrible attempts at improvisation which ended up as little more than pressing a keyboard demo button and strumming a guitar randomly, and far too many songs written about my budgie, some genuinely interesting music appeared. Two tapes recorded in 1997 contain some interesting ideas which have a lot in common with Second Thought itself, whilst 1999’s only recording (I’d got a computer at this point and thus didn’t have time for, y’know, being creative and stuff) is compositionally head and shoulders above everything else. As a contrast, I’m going to listen to all of my 00s material – Second Thought, 2T, So Far So Good and some silliness – to complete the picture of how I got here. Despite the obvious improvement in quality, I have a feeling this will actually be a less enjoyable experience, interestingly. I wrote a huge long ramble about all the music I’ve been involved in from 1995, but for myself, as there’s no chance in hell anybody but me will even consider reading it.

I was featured on an mp3 album I released on Jerky Oats this morning, on synths on the title track of Random Proportions by Loose Link. It’s a lovely sound collage of strange sounds, beats, samples and allsorts, and well worth listening to. That can be downloaded here.

Once I’ve had a listen to these tracks from 2000 to now (just finishing 2001, in fact), I’m getting back to collating all the samples I’ve collected in recent months and maybe then I can continue with composition.

1st December 2010

The third Lemony Nougat disc is out today, my favourite so far, the Jack Anderton one. The project is becoming a pain in the arse as making the artwork is more tricky than it looks. Still, three down, four to go (although there may be an 8th in the future… news on that next year at some point). Trawling through my old cassettes continues. Some of my first cassettes as Ross Baker are rather great, nice to discover my glitchy keyboard fuckups recorded, some 25 minute field recordings, an electric piano duet with my dad and some other stuff. Most excitingly, the aforementioned Mike Oldfield inspired ‘Cliff Edge’ turned out to be rather good, each 23 minute side a morphing, evolving improvised piece which contains some really interesting melodic ideas. Might take inspiration from this in the future.

I’ve done my first work on actual Second Thought material in months this afternoon, putting some final touches to a couple of tracks on what will probably be the follow-up to Safernoc. I actually used one of the field recordings from my old cassettes on one, which worked nicely in terms of what I was trying to create, and the concept of the album. More of that when it’s more relevant.

8th November 2010

Noisesurfer’s Evening Road album – which I carefully pieced togther into a flowing album – is out now on Jerky Oats Records. Check it out, it comes recommended to anybody who likes my normal albums or atmospheric electronic music with a bit of punch in general. I quite enjoy doing that kind of album constructing thing, sometimes the making of actual tracks gets in the way. So this has been fun as I was able to do it without having to making the tracks in the first place! Anyway, I really enjoy the music and it’s definitely worth a listen.

Speaking of worth a listen, I’ve been looking all over the internet for netlabel releases that really appeal to me. Not being a huge fan of the glitchy IDM so popular this century, and being tired of drone, it’s not always that simple to find decent listening-electronica, but I’ve stumbled across two excellent albums: Michael Hoffmann’s Luminous, an hour of excellent, heavily melodic ambient techno; and the eastern tinged Across the Threshold by Renzu. Great stuff.

In an attempt to stay creative, whilst regaining my focus, I’ve been slowly working through my old cassettes, recorded between 1995 and 1999. It’s mostly me and friends singing along to The Shadows, but it’s enjoyable – partially for nostalgia, partially for putting my music into context. I’ve found it quite interesting to note that even back then, I was creating conceptual, heavily atmospheric story-based music – there are ideas and places in the music which I envisioned right back when I was starting out. I’m over halfway through my stint in The Ghosts, the first band recorded like this, and am looking forward to my solo recorded tapes, which contain very, very loose elements of what was to come, and in a couple of places formed backing tracks to Curse of Kevin Carter songs. Every now and then, something of genuine interest pops up. Anyway, I have another 50 or so to go, so I’ll be doing this for a while yet.

11th October 2010

I’ve spent the best part of today mixing down the next Noisesurfer album. Joachim – who released a solo album called Noisesurfer on Jerky Oats earlier in the year – has been joined by Rachel to form the duo. Given the task of working out a running order for their debut album, I suggested maybe having a go at stitching the tracks together Second Thought style, to make a flowing album, and it’s worked out fantastically. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done – the album actually flows better than some of my own records, particularly Vacuum Road Songs! – but credit goes to Noisesurfer for creating this series of dark, sinister ambient techno in the first place.

When looking at my website this morning, I looked at the cover for Purlieu and it sent a jolt of emotion through me, in a sort of ‘I want to be doing that again’ kind of way. I think working on this Noisesurfer record has been quite a good way to deal with my need to get back to old style Second Thought soundscape albums while I wait for Safernoc to come out.

The Curse of Kevin Carter came out this morning, and I’m happy to say it’s proving to be really rather popular. Lucy’s beautiful art is going down well and all comments have been really positive. I was nervous about the release, as not only is a deeply personal record, but the style is so different to my normal stuff – even with my noisier diversions – that I wasn’t sure if people would accept it or not. Seems I had nothing to worry about, though!

Lucy and I are finishing up the artwork for the Cementimental/Fist Taker/Second Thought split tomorrow – just in time for Wednesday’s release!

21st September 2010

I wish I’d get off my arse and do stuff sometimes. It’s taken me several months to get around to sending out demos, and of course now I’m faced with a bunch of releases due out at the same time, a la Treatments/Canal Seven, rather than spreading them over the several months we’ve had since 60° South in May. Ah well. Here’s what’s happening:

Dungeness is one of a series of dark ambient/drone releases I’ve been working on since the success of Treatments. The pieces are in a different style. The eagle-eyed old fans from before Purlieu might recognise Qualia in some form. A very, very old track from 1999/2000 called Platinum appears in drastically remixed form, plus three recent compositions of synthesised electronic drones. Bump Foot, the long running Japanese netlabel, are releasing it very soon. I’ll hopefully have the release date sooner!

1. Carpetless Floor
2. Platinum
3. Hulme
4. Two Colours
5. Qualia

Small Black Box is a more experimental work from earlier in the year, mostly recorded in March and April. The focus here is on texture, and although some of the pieces contain what could be described as traditional melody and structure, they are not the focus of the record. Some pieces are 30 second snippets of sound, while others are positively epic. It’s a bit noisey and a bit disjointed, but I like that about it. That should be appearing on Tavern Eightieth very soon too (see what I mean about multiple releases?)

Last up (if you ignore the long-announced release of The Curse of Kevin Carter in October) is a record which may need a little more in the way of introduction. An idea long in the works and finally happening is a series of 3″ CDr releases on Jerky Oats Records called Lemony Nougat. The name is an anagram of La Monte Young, which should give you an idea of what the theme is. If all goes to plan, ten artists will each release a disc as part of the series, an contribute up to 20 minutes of ambient/drone music. The material on each release will be new and exclusive, and the releases are very strictly limited to 20 copies, each handmade in special minimalist artwork on black card. I’ve been incredibly lucky to get some amazing artists involved in this, some I’ve worked with before and some not. Already confirmed are Jack Anderton, Off Land, Cubus, Perfect Writing and Noisesurfer, plus my own project with my girlfriend, Merganser. I’m really excited about the whole project as it should be a lot of fun, and should get me to work with a range of great musicians.

And, of course, to get the ball rolling, is a release from Second Thought. Torn Vision is an experimental drone piece by music, seventeen minutes of a flute loop which is morphed and shaped into a drastically different form.

As previously mentioned, I’ve sent out some CD demos to labels recently, and part of me is hoping if they get picked up, there’s a backlog of releases so nothing else comes out before the end of the year. I don’t want the releases to get too overwhelming!

All in all, it’s a very exciting and productive time. Although I’ve now set up a list of things to do that don’t involve making more music, as I’m still about 15 releases behind… Anyway, you’ll read about them in the future, as and when they’re ready.

Safernoc is on its way at some point, I promise!

25th November 2009

So, big change all round. The eagle eyed among you will have noticed not only has the secondthought.co.uk website has changed, but the artist description has changed too. I’m looking forward to taking Second Thought in variety of more interesting directions now. I’m working on some different music and different ideas that don’t fit the traditional Second Thought mould from the past. I’m going to keep the main albums (Safernoc news very soon!) released as normal, but look out for some exciting EPs andother such things coming to a netlabel (or two) near you. It’s all a bit secretive, but expect real instruments and vocals on some occasions.

Talking of netlabels, Jerky Oats has seen its second release, an mp3-only download of the live set I performed at AmbientLive Awakenings in Leeds a while ago. The EP can be picked up here.

15th October 2006

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? What’s going on, then?

Haven’t worked on anything with Claire since the last update about her – funny how people change and move on, isn’t it? Still, I’ve been working on music nonetheless. A few sketches here and there have been recorded, work on Vacuum Road Songs’ follow-up has definitely begun although that’s so far away it’s not worth talking about, really. Elsewhere, I’m working on some stuff with Ste again. No idea where it’s going, who’s leading the project, what it’ll sound like. Taking in our influences of late, it’ll be anything from britpop to post-punk to post-hardcore/emo to shoegaze stuff. So like I say, no idea.

I suppose I should also mention that some of my stuff was played on BBC Radio 6Music. That, in itself, I thought was pretty great, but it was played by The Future Sound of London. I’m not going to witter about it, simply because having your all-time favourite band and number one influence play your material on national radio isn’t something that can really be explained in words. But hey. They managed to fuck up the title of the song. 😉

Finally, Vacuum Road Songs is seeing a probable release in the new year. For my university dissertation I’m working with Joe, Nate and Andy on setting up a record label, which will include recording bands, releasing CDs, promotion and live stuff. One ofthe releases is planned to be Second Thought’s new album, and thank God!

University is, at last, being really good to me in this way. Also this year I’m studying the origins of electronic music: musique concrete and early synth-based stuff, so far, and recording from a similar perspective; I’m also doing a songwriting module and remixing a track by a not entirely unknown indie band in a more electro style. So it could all turn out very interesting indeed.

xxx