Category: journal

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.

26th November 2010

11 days without me prattling on? You lucky sods. I have now listened to every one of my early collaborative (er, “band”) tapes and am today about to commence listening to all of my solo material, mostly me + guitar + cheap Casio keyboard. I have a feeling this will mostly be a very painful, unmelodic racket, but there are some themes in there, such as my 45 minute Mike Oldfield-inspired opus ‘Cliff Edge’, which I haven’t heard in years. I have (probably unrealistic) high hopes that something will be sampleable. We shall see.

Speaking of cassettes, yesterday marked the release of the first Second Thought cassette, a noise/experimental split with Esion on Sludgesicle Records. It’s good to be on tape at last. It costs $4 in the US and $6 for the rest of the world (about £3.50, then), and is limited to 33 copies. Pick one up before they sell out!

The Awakenings gig is officially confirmed, I am performing on 5th February 2011 in Burton. Tickets will be available in the new year from the Awakenings website (along with a very, very old picture of me). I’ve also submitted some songs for next year’s Awakenings compilations, including a live in-studio version of VRS’s ‘Night’ from earlier this year, an excerpt from one of my recent live rehearsals, and a couple of tracks which combine influences from Berlin school electronica and more contemporary sounds (one of which was due to appear on Cataclysmic Variable Star). I’ll let you know more about those when they happen, first one should be in January/February, I think!

I think it’s customary to end posts with ‘Safernoc news soon!’, isn’t it?

15th November 2010

The first of my ‘bands’, The Ghosts, is over and they’re renamed So Far So Good. My trawl through those tapes continues. Something happened around this era and my music began to lose a lot of its charm, but luckily there’s a two-tape compilation of every love song we “wrote” which contains a number of earlier songs. It’s also interesting that I’m able to trace my childhood through a lot of these tapes, regarding which friends are on them, what music I’m singing along to and so on. This nostalgia makes me sad about how calculated some of my music has become in some ways. At this point we’d sit around and pick an instrumental track to sing along with, or pick up a guitar and improvise a song. It was rarely any good, but it was a lot more fun to make than even some of my recent experimental projects. I like not knowing what’s going to happen and just making something.

A lot of the earlier tapes I used to know inside, and listen to them as much as I did my own CDs. Listening back now I can still picture my bedroom, clean and tidy (for once) as I used to sit and pretend I was in a band, maybe playing air guitar on an imaginary stage on Top Of The Pops or something. I suppose it’s a fairly obvious, unoriginal dream for a kid in the 1990s, but it was one I had. There was never any cynicism there (you can’t be cynical and seriously write a song called ‘Son of Ghost Mountain is Back Again’, and then follow it up with ‘Ghost Mountain in Space’), and I quite admire that.

This, combined with a lot of stuff regarding my frame of mind, I’m taking a break from getting pissed off with things, reading shit that’s going to make me unhappy and general awfulness. I’m going to go for walks and watch documentaries about animals and listen to more of these tapes and other stuff that’s really quite pleasant. I’ve been running a lot lately, managed over 5km the other day so I’m doing nicely there.

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.

4th November 2010

It is with a mixture of sadness and relief that I announce the scrapping of the forthcoming space ambient album Cataclysmic Variable Star. I could probably write many, many paragraphs detailing exactly why, although that would be a mostly futile attempt to define what the ‘Second Thought sound’ is, which is pretty much impossible. What I can say though, is the album no longer seems like a suitable release. Sadly, a musician gets defined by his releases, particularly full-length releases. With Safernoc due out around the same time as it, there would have been an immediate competition for attention, and that is not something I’d want. Truthfully, whatever the ‘Second Thought sound’ is, I try and make albums as honest and personal as possible. Purlieu and Vacuum Road Songs were very literal aural descriptions of places in my head, and Safernoc is a little more vague, but still has some very specific ideas there. There’s a distinct atmosphere. Future albums will, in some way, follow this trend. With this in mind, the concept of a space-themed record seems (ironically) very alien, and doesn’t express what I want to express through my releases which get the most focus. I want the ‘experimental series’ over with asap and this leaves the album sat between my ‘main’ releases and ‘experimental’ releases. When I began to think “well, maybe I could only promote it on this forum” and “I could simultaneously release it with Safernoc – one the past, one the future” I realised that it just wasn’t going to work. There’s also the fact that the second track is a bit shit at the moment. That needs a lot of reworking.

I’m putting forward the first track, Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Object, for the first Awakenings compilation of 2011, and will probably rework some of the material from PV Telescopii Variable for the future. In all honesty, I think the first track will be better for everyone on the compilation, as it will sit quite comfortably alongside similar music, more people will get to hear it and hopefully enjoy it, and it might even pick up some interest from people wanting to buy Cataclysmic Variable Star – it’ll almost certainly be sat alongside similar music that’s a lot better than PV Telescopii Variable!

To fit all of this, I have re-arranged the discography a little on my website. I have now made a distinction between the main albums (and associated EPs) and the ‘experimental series’ – 2010’s 13 releases.

2nd November 2010

Well, the first Absence.Insolution split’s out, although sales aren’t going as well as I’d hoped. Maybe we mis-judged the artwork concept – Lucy and I came up with 19 sleeves based around things we were planning on throwing away, thus recycling rubbish into art. A nice idea, and hopefully something to catch the eye of potential buyers! Or maybe not. Ah well. We’ll see how that goes in time, anyway. Either way, it just leaves two more releases – the Esion split, and the second Absence.Insolution split, which I received the artwork for earlier in the week and is looking nice.

It’s funny, I was excited about all this at one point, and then concerned, and then relieved, but now kind of bored. I suppose this is what such a ridiculous stream of releases does to you. I do still check my download totals regularly, so I pay attention, but still. This year’s nearly over, and the year of experimentation with it. And for all the trouble it’s caused, I have come away from it having learned something. The experiments this year will go towards future releases. Treatments’ and Dungeness’ drones, Canal Seven’s collage work, 60 Degrees South’s synth improvs, Oncoming Storm’s Ableton experiments, The Curse of Kevin Carter’s songform, Small Black Box’s sound experiments – all of these ideas will re-appear on future Second Thought albums. Some of these records have been more well formed than others. Some simply sound like experiments, others might seem like complete records, but each one was an exercise; a new approach to creating music for me. Just rather than taking the best bits and making an album, I decided to put it all out, to open up and let anybody hear who wishes to hear. I could probably have saved them up and made a more ‘traditional’ Second Thought album, but that wouldn’t have felt right at this time. Instead, I’ll be picking the best ideas and using them as inspiration in the future. Some of these will seem very obvious, in time. Others, less so. But it’s been a lot of fun. And a little bit of stress.

I did some synths for a track I’m working on with Loose Link this afternoon, some nice sounds going down there, but it did bring to mind that, one way or another, I’m not in such a compositional, creative mood at the moment. I’ve rediscovered the joy of listening to music again, after several months of simply making it and going over my own work. I’m going to focus on going through old tapes, CDs and field recordings in the next few months, to try and get myself prepared for working on a new lot of material in the future. Not that that’ll be anytime soon, I’m taking a well-earned break. Got a Noisesurfer remix to work on this week and that’s it. Just going to work on organising and arranging sounds for a while without any need to actually write music. Which feels like quite a relief!

26th October 2010

The Noisesurfer split came out yesterday and has picked up a fair few downloads already. I hope everyone’s enjoying it – it can be downloaded here, if anyone’s not heard it yet. I’d say it’s probably my favourite electronic work of this autumn’s experimental series, some very sinister drones and harsh ambience. Noisesurfer have provided a series of really excellent fuzzy tracks for it too! They’re improving at an incredible rate, from some sketches and demos earlier this year towards making this really interesting dark, atmospheric music already. Impressive stuff.

Spent the weekend in Hinckley, which was pleasant, and got me considering my future prospects once again. I suppose being back really reminds me of the previous productive period of Second Thought, 2002, which produced a lot of sketches earlier on, plus the whole of Twenty-Four and half of Purlieu. As much as the quality of a lot of that material is lacking, I’m still very fond of it as it felt entirely honest, with ne’er a genre exercise in sight. I want to head back that way, towards the days when it wasn’t so easy to categorise my music into “drone”, “Berlin school”, “noise” and so on. Give it a bit of time! A walk to Fosse Meadows yesterday morning did a lot on the inspiration front, but it always seems to. All of the initial plans for Dead Hymns were conceived on a walk around there during Christmas 2004 (which is a rather strange inspiration, bizarrely, but still), the place just seems right for imagination to me. Some of what was Habitats is based around the place. But you won’t be hearing that for a year or so yet. What a tease.

My split with Esion was awaiting my re-arrival in Folkestone. I haven’t listened to it yet, but the tracklist is now in the discography and I’m putting some photos up tomorrow, once my camera battery’s charged. Nice DIY sleeve, limited to 33 copies. I’m incredibly happy to have a cassette release! It just seems so right for noise. So hopefully that’ll do well once it’s released. Should be out at some point in November apparently, once the label is officially up and operational once more. The Absence.Insolution Recycled split is out a week today, just leaving our ‘stereo split’ release to come out at some point when Indestructible Object are ready to go with it. Might not be until next year, annoyingly. Still, what to do?

Things are coming together nicely, anyway.

18th October 2010

Well, that’s all my solo releases for 2010 out! Small Black Box and Dungeness were released yesterday, the former on my friend Michael’s rather excellent label Tavern Eightieth, which focuses on experimental sound art (very fitting for the release), and the latter on long-running and well established Japanese netlabel Bump Foot, both labels I am proud to be associated with. Small Black Box is by far the most experimental release I’ve worked on; Dungeness the bleakest. They’re not easy going but I’m very happy with them in their own ways, so check them out. 🙂

This still leaves a couple of splits to clear out in the next few weeks. The Esion one is on its way to me very soon and I’m waiting on Mike for news on the official availablity of that, while the Noisesurfer one should, based on past releases, come out on Sunday. The first of my Absence.Insolution splits is out on November 1st and the second shortly after (hopefully). The light at the end of the bleak, dark, droney, noisy tunnel I’ve been travelling through is almost upon me and I feel very happy. It’s been such a productive year, but also a depressing one in some ways, and the two have meshed to make an incredibly bleak but creative body of work. In some ways, January 2011 will continue somewhat directly on from my blog in September 2009 announcing the tracklist of Safernoc, amusingly. Anyway, enough of that, there’s still a couple of hours of drone and noise to come out first. Hold tight.

15th October 2010

In an attempt to slowly draw in the number of releases I have lined up once more, I’ve been revisiting old ideas and working out what to do with them. This is quite a fun practice, as in the past I’ve often finished a song or album, and left it at that, with the idea that each record is of its own moment – something that is regularly a fair point, but I’ve discovered it can be very enjoyable to rework stuff once I’ve given it some space.

To this end, the previously announced follow-up to Canal Seven will not be coming out in any recognisible form, and won’t be appearing in any form for quite some time now, to free up some space in the release schedule next year. After the two EPs and handful of splits that remain this year, its all go for Safernoc and, at the same time the free Syophonic EP from the same sessions, at the beginning of 2011. Then it’s time for a special release recorded for my performance at the Awakenings show in Burton-on-Trent, which has been confirmed as the first show of the year, on 5th February. I’ll be playing alongside Nick Robinson again, and the headliners are Endgame. Given that the events focus on the more traditional end of the EM spectrum, expect the show and its accompanying release to show considerable influence from space ambient and Berlin School electronica. More news on those soon!

Once Safernoc and the Awakenings album are out, I should have one release outstanding, which is an exciting collaborative effort I’ll explain about nearer the time. It’s something that’s been worked on for quite a while and should be excellent. And after that, it’s on to pastures new and a return to the standard album releases I’ve been talking about. As the very first entry to this blog said, the future’s bright, the future’s storange.

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!