Over the past couple of weeks I have been recording all sorts of things with the four track. I have three more tracks to complete from these sessions. It’s quite stripped back so far, sort of Revolution 2 meets Photographic Reflection. I’m attempting to make an album without any computer whatsoever. This will be the first time since 1999.
27th June 2013
I’ve been working more on Terra Incognita, restructuring and reimagining the piece. I’ve probably done more versions of this album than anything I’ve done before. There’s about 90 minutes of material recorded, although I think I’ve finally pieced together the best 30 minutes into a nice piece. Discussing release options with a couple of labels at the moment. I’ve also worked on a couple of mixtapes to fit the theme, which will be aired later in the year.
I recently returned to the ‘Where Will We Go When the Roads Have All Cracked?’ record I was working on a few years ago, and finished it off to a standard it needed. Going to start sorting out release details for that soon. It will feature reworkings of previously released tracks ‘The Slow Decay of Concrete and Glass’ and ‘Oxygen, Tanks and Gas Masks’, and an album release, finally, of ‘Closed Loops of a Train’ – for those of you who’ve heard those, that will give an idea of the mood. I’m describing it as anti-ruralism, although in its portrait of the bleak, hopelessness of urban decay, I suppose it comes around to the same sort of thinking as ruralism itself: a return to the tranquility of nature and the land as a refuge from the 21st century.
Anyway, after the anti-ruralism and exploring the psychedelic headspaces of Terra Incognita and its associated mixtapes, I feel comfortable returning to the ruralist world for future recordings. I have no real plans at the moment, other than getting some gear and setting up a mini-studio (sick of my laptop). I’ve been listening to Eno’s ‘Another Green World’ lately, and would love to do something with a similar pastoral feel. So who knows!
30th May 2013
Something I just posted on the Modulator ESP forum about the first record that changed my life.
I suppose the defining moments for me…
Christmas 1994 – dad bought Another String of Hot Hits and More by The Shadows to play on the CD player my parents had bought. Before that I had no real interest in music at all, but I quickly became obsessed with this. Solely responsible for me being interested in instrumental music.
1995 – my dad, realising that it was good for me to be open minded to music from the word go, played me ‘Revolution 9’ by The Beatles. I was 10. Boundaries such as ‘structure’ and ‘melody’ never had chance to form after this, thus my continued interest in experimental and electronic music.
April 1996 – I saw ‘The Box’ by Orbital on Top of the Pops. Instrumental music in the charts! My first CD purchase.
February 1997 – I’d seen ‘My Kingdom’ by FSOL on Top of the Pops (seems completely insane now!) the previous November and bought the single, but it was upon purchasing Lifeforms that I became an obsessive fan. It’s been my favourite album ever since, and I still don’t feel I’ve completely got to grips with it. It’s so dense.
Basically my entire taste was formed by the age of 12, it’s all been diminishing returns since then.
20th May 2013 – Shopping list //
Zoom n2 (or n4), ideally with some kind of wind blocker.
At least one hardware synth.
A really nice reverb pedal (I’m probably going to go with Boss unless anybody has any other recommendations)
A loop pedal of some sort – need to do homework here.
Boss DC-2 (thanks to JML for the recommendation)
An 8 track mixer, or possibly just getting the power cable for mine fixed and having it dusted off and cleaned up.
A nice electro-acoustic guitar.
And some sort of way of carrying my amp halfway across the UK, ideally one that avoids the tube.
Who wants to give me some money? Jez of Modulator ESP is about to sell of some gear so if you ever fancied donating on Bandcamp, now would be a wonderful time!
tl;dr – I’m getting really fucking bored of my laptop.
19th May 2013
It’s interesting, as I look for the right label to release Terra Incognita, to discover just how many tape labels are slowing down their output at the moment, whilst there’s quite a surge of new ones starting up at the moment.
The difficult thing, I’m finding, is the ever-changing popularity of certain styles and approaches – Berlin School-type synth stuff is definitely becoming more sparse, and… am I noticing an increased interest in stuff with a techno influence these days? Either way, more often than not, the labels who are the most open to really strange stuff (for the record, TI goes from synthpop to solo piano to spoken word + field recordings in less than ten minutes – no, I don’t make it easy for myself) are often those, like Hooker Vision, Chemical Tapes &c., who are more established and tend to pick artists who they already like. Which is far enough, as that’s how I’ve done Second Thought / Jerky Oats / Bullfinch in the past. I’ve never released a demo I’ve received. As always, the best way in is getting a bit of a live following – sadly, I live in Maidstone.
Anyway, I’ve been in touch with a couple of labels who do seem pretty open and interesting, hopefully somebody will be able to appreciate where I’m coming from and enjoy the strangeness.
3rd April 2013
Like many of my best records – Safernoc and Photographic Reflection, for example – Eyebrook was recorded in a burst of inspiration over a short period of time, without concession to genre or worrying about promotion. It contains elements of almost all the types of music I enjoy mixed into one glorious whole.
It’s my most electronic record since Aeolian Landform a couple of years ago, although there are acoustic guitars and piano present, and a lot of it retains the rural warmth of my last few records. It’s loosely themed around lakes and reservoirs, inspired by the sounds of waterfowl and wading birds that go so nicely with synths and piano. It was just a soundscape I really wanted to create, something that seems very visual to me. It’s quite nice returning to that style of composing.
The album should be out on Bump Foot on 14th April. I hope you enjoy it!
13th February 2013
All of my past music that’s available has now been added to my main Bandcamp. This basically brings together past work as Second Thought and The Curse of Kevin Carter under one banner, which is certainly not how I originally imagined things, but I’m now happy to just say ‘this is me’. I have included a wealth of bonus material in here, too. First off, Purlieu has been rounded off with a 30 minute collage collecting various related unreleased material of similar style, from the Purlieu, Leaf Pass and East of Evening sessions. Since Every Hour is Too Late has been expanded to include a selection of synth pieces from the same sessions, and closes with ‘May Revisited’. There are also bonus remixes and live takes included in the downloads of Vacuum Road Songs and Safernoc. Finally, the lost Second Thought album Aeolian Landform is available in its original format, after a short appearance under my Obliquity monker a couple of years ago, in its rightful place amongst my other records. This now gives the whole page a rather strange feel, collecting together ambient techno, modern classical, lo-fi acoustics and various other genres, but why should genres matter, really?
All of the albums (except East of Evening, of which there are still a few tape copies available) are available as name-your-price downloads, so there is potentially eleven hours of free music to grab there, although I am saving towards some new gear which I’ll be needing to work on my next album, so all donations are very gratefully received. Enjoy!
30th December 2012
In the past I’ve done a ‘top 10 albums of the year’ at the end of each year, but there have been too many for me to comfortably leave some of them out, so I’m stretching to a top 20…
01. The Future Sound of London – Environments 4
02. The Glimmer Room – The Wind Blows Summer from the Trees
03. Max Richter – Vivaldi Recomposed: The Four Seasons
04. Pietro Riarbelli – Three Days of Silence
05. Porya Hatami – The Black Woodpecker
06. The Future Sound of London – From the Archives vol. 7
07. Burial – Street Halo/Kindred
08. Darren McClure – The Black Kite
09. Wolf Maps – Landforms
10. Orbital – Wonky
11. Valiska & MHVA – Music on Hold
12. Good Weather for an Airstrike – Lights
13. Taken by Trees – Other Worlds
14. Daniel Pemberton – Space Dive
15. Deison – Quiet Rooms
16. David Newlyn – Deterioration
17. Joao Castro Pinto – Panaural
18. Off Land – Circadian
19. Off Land – Overlook
20. Mothlite – Dark Age
A really strong year for music.
26th December 2012
Well, thankfully the world didn’t end, so I can end the year on a high note. 2012 has been a very important year for me, in many, many ways. In musical terms, it has been a year of reinvention – a chance for me to start again, work out who I am and why I am doing what I’m doing. The Revolution sessions at the start of the year were a proper ‘year zero’ thing, stripping right back to me, an acoustic guitar, a cheap keyboard and a 4-track, for the most part. Since then I’ve released two records I’m very proud of – The Blackbirds’ Revenge and Photographic Reflection- which have built on the ambient acoustic sound I have found so rewarding to work with. The second half of the year I have spent recording a huge bulk of material, but thankfully have found the quality control to only select ten tracks for album number 3, East of Evening, which will be out in January. I’m expecting the tapes to arrive just after new year, and will start dubbing them then. I’ve had some really positive reviews and lots of great feedback from these new records.
I really do feel a sense of peace and ease with my music now that hasn’t been present since recording Safernoc and Canal Seven back in 2009. I have a few ideas about music going forward, and think it’ll take a lot longer with more attention to detail than the somewhat stripped-back nature of the recent releases, going to work on a big, lush sound. There’s also a very experimental record with my friend Craig, the second album as Sturmazdale, which will be appearing at some point in the coming months, and tentative work has begun on the second Curse of Kevin Carter album.
I feel like I really know who I am and what I’m doing these days, and that makes me very happy. Roll on 2013!
30th May 2012 – Recording
I have been recording again, for the first time in a few months. I’m putting down the first parts for my next album. I have nine tracks written in terms of chords and structure, many of which originate from around the same time as Revolution 2. I’m now facing the task of writing melodies, words and arrangements to fit them. I’m planning on doing something a little more adventurous – probably closer to The Blackbirds’ Revenge in scope, although with more instrumentation. We’ll see how that goes. In slightly more ambient news, I’ve also been working on some soundtrack work, which is going to be more instrumental. I’ll be able to share more on that at a later date.
I’ve also been working on the Jesse Conner collaborative material, which has come along nicely. I’ve added words for the song ‘Home’ – which I wrote the words for and sang – to the lyrics section. Mostly very acoustic, lo-fi stuff. Pretty much what you’d expect if you’re familiar with his music and my more recent stuff. And finally there’s some Merganser material coming together, which is nice. So, feeling quite productive again. And the website has new colours and an improved ‘about’ page!
I recently started writing for Musique Machine, an online music magazine, generally doing reviews of experimental stuff. Nice to get a selection of interesting new music heading my way on a regular basis! Other than that, I have recently been enjoying:
The Future Sound of London – Environments 4
Nicola Roberts – Cinderella’s Eyes
Deaf Center – Pale Ravine
Tangerine Dream – Hyperborea
Rod Jones – A Sentimental Education
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