Look North

As you’ll have spotted if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, when I’m not criticising other people’s music, I also create some pretty poor material of my own. I’ll never ask you to like it or provide feedback, because I make it entirely for my own entertainment. I also won’t post here about it more than once a year, because this isn’t what this blog is about.

But on the offchance you’re wondering what I’ve been up to this year, here’s your update. After remixing tracks from my first two albums over the last couple of years, I moved onto my unfinished demos from my time living in Yorkshire, from 2005-2009, and built four EPs and an album out of them. It all began with Your World or Mine?, which on the album sounded like this:

The EP versions aren’t quite demos, but they aren’t quite completed either, and the most notable of these was Entranced, which was a daft 90s dance track in its initial form, then got remixed to be an expansive ambient piece, before finally settling down to become a dubby but somewhat conventional song on the album:

Left at the Bitter End led the second EP (Meanwood), and was subject to a major remix for the album, leading to a track that I’m particularly proud of. There’s also a single now with a couple of extra reinterpretations, but this is how it sounds on the album:

Times had changed when I recorded the original demos for the third and fourth EPs (Pinewood and Driftwood respectively). By this time, I was playing around with song structures, and looking to other songwriters for inspiration. If you listen to the album, you’ll find a couple of examples of this, but Animal Magnetism is one of the more experimental pieces that resulted from this period:

After this came California, which will form the backdrop for album number five. There’s a lot more material there, so time will tell whether it all appears in 2021, but work is already progressing well. For now, though, I’ll go back to keeping quiet about these works, and you’re welcome to ignore them if you’re offended by them!

Advertisement

Nowhere and Back Again

Time for a little once-annual self-promotion. You may recall that over the last couple of years, I had been remastering the two instrumental albums that I released between 2002 and 2003, as well as their accompanying singles. From Roots to Branches was finally reissued in 2017, and the follow-up Shadowsphere turned out never actually to have seen a wide release, so finally saw its first full release in 2018.

Sonically, as you will no doubt quickly realise, neither album is exactly a great accomplishment, but the second album was also a technical disaster, with masters failing and numerous pieces being lost. In the end, the second single from that album, the Fading Synthesis EP, was abandoned, unfinished and lost. One of the first things I did in 2019 was to retrieve the pieces, leading to this brand new version:

There were then just a couple of things left to do – one of the new tracks on that EP was in fairly good shape, so I finished that off, and called it Time Honoured, and then there was a very old demo to finish off, called Glen of Tranquility. Having tightened those up with new mixes, I moved back to From Roots to Branches. There were a couple of tracks that I wanted to try remixing, starting with Leaving Home:

Finally, it was time to try something new – I pulled all the pieces of Landscape #1, Landscape #2, and Landscape #3, together with a more recent song idea, and built this, Landscape #4, as a bit of a modern tribute to the first album:

Which meant it was clearly time for a tribute to the second album, so I turned to the other b-side demo for Fading Synthesis, which was going to be a continuation of Noise Gate. So I pulled together elements from that, plus the three shorter tracks on Shadowsphere, and built this, Voices in the Shadows (Part 2):

Self-indulgent? Definitely. But it was fun to finally find closure for those early albums. I’m sure it won’t excite too many people other than me, but I hope it won’t offend them either. There’s even a CD available on Amazon now, too, including some of the extra tracks from the singles. You’ll find the album on some of the regular streaming services, such as Spotify, Deezer, and others, and as always, everything is completely free on Bandcamp.

Of course, now, it’s hard to stop – there’s plenty of unfinished business from after 2004, so a series of EPs will follow in 2020, and possibly even the fourth album.

Shadowsphere

A little over a year ago, I was rude enough to impose some of my own music on this blog, and since everyone was surprisingly supportive at the time (that is to say, people who didn’t like it just ignored the post and got on with their day), I’m going to do it again. Sorry in advance.

But the story starts back in 2002, with my first album From Roots to Branches, which was what I posted about last year, as I remastered it just in time to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary. The following year (2003), I followed it up with Shadowsphere, which was either more adventurous or very dull, or most likely some combination of the two. As a taster, here’s the opening track Noise Gate:

Also in 2003, I had released one single, one sampler, and one EP, and so I collected the tracks from those, plus some special unreleased demos and other oddities, onto a companion compilation called Hidden Paths. From that, here’s the original single version of Great Nowhere:

Remastering both of these collections presented some interesting challenges – there was a lot of background noise on several of the tracks which was coming from one or two of the synthesisers that I’d used. In the process, I found a more effective way to get rid of the noise, and so re-remastered From Roots to Branches in 2018 as well – and then proceeded to release both on CD, with bonus tracks.

There was some unfinished business though – I had recorded about half of one final single, intended for release in mid-2004, but the recordings had been lost. Trying to revive the tracks led to the Reverse Engineered singles, starting with Alien Worlds:

The series was due to continue a few months later with Infinite Wisdom, but due to another computer crash, I lost the initial re-recordings, so it didn’t actually happen until a few months ago. Here’s the single version:

There are now six releases online: From Roots to Branches and its companion album Fallen Leaves, Shadowsphere and its companion album Hidden Paths, and the two Reverse Engineered singles Alien Worlds and Infinite Wisdom. All are completely free, and available from my Bandcamp page.

From Roots to Branches

I’ve never used this blog to discuss anything particularly personal – politics aren’t entirely a no-go zone as far as I’m concerned, but my other projects and lives don’t really belong here. But it’s the start of a New Year, and it always takes us a little time to ramp up to the regular posts, so I hope you’ll forgive me a little self-indulgence.

As will become clear shortly, one of the reasons I write this blog is that I’m an exceptionally untalented musician myself – but I did give it a try, with two albums released in 2002 and 2003 respectively. For years, I’ve been meaning to go back and remaster them, and finally, about six months ago, I started work on a cleaned up version of the first album From Roots to Branches.

The first track on the album is Landscape #1, which is supposed to be broad and atmospheric:

If that’s a bit dull for you, I think this is one of my favourites, Landscape #2:

There are nine tracks on the album in total, some more “pop” than others, but honestly I think now that the most accessible tracks were on the three singles, Landscape #1, Forgotten Summer, and Illusions of Twilight. I’ve compiled all these together with a whole load of previously unreleased material on a new compilation called Fallen Leaves. This is the first track I worked on for the whole project, started in late 2001, and entitled Charmed Life:

I was learning all the time, and the 2003 recordings fixed a lot of the things people had pointed out with the originals, so the single version of Illusions of Twilight is, to my mind, considerably better than the original album version:

Both From Roots to Branches and its companion album Fallen Leaves are available now, completely for free, from my Bandcamp page. If you download either, I’ll also send you a free copy of The Branch Line EP, which is a collection of demos and unreleased versions.

The second album Shadowsphere will follow in the first half of 2018.

Unsigned, but not forgotten

One of the things I really wanted to do when I started this blog five years ago was to try to do anything I could to help unsigned artists. I had tried previously, actually, on a radio show, and had found that a lot of unsigned acts couldn’t get their, um, “act” together to make it work as a cohesive feature, and so it only really ran three of four times before falling in flames.

The unsigned feature on this blog lasted a little longer, and did showcase some interesting acts, but it also opened me up to a lot of artists who for one reason or another weren’t appropriate for the blog, and one or two people who didn’t take that news too well. These are the perils of doing anything on the internet.

But let’s take a look at those who did make it, and see what they have been up to!

Blue Swan

First covered on my radio show in February 2005, and then subsequently looked at in detail on this blog in November 2012, this Danish duo seem to have entered a quiet phase in their career. Looking at their Soundcloud, their last new tracks were the ones we covered here five years ago, and there have been a few DJ mixes since then, but not a lot of activity.

Hugh Doolan

We covered this Irish acoustic act back in November 2012, and looking at his Soundcloud account he’s been very busy recently. His Bandcamp page includes ten releases since we last spoke to him, including acoustic tracks and film soundtracks.

Rance Garrison

Covered back in August 2013, when he was between albums, he seems to have released three new albums in the last few years, all of which are available on his Bandcamp page.

Jonteknik

We first covered Jon’s debut album in November 2012, and when we visited him again the following year, he had just released another album. He’s now part of a label that I need to look into further called The People’s Electric, and recently released an album called Skylines.

Kyma

Introduced to this blog back in November 2012, this UK-based act was still busy a year or so later, including proudly posting one of his songs that was played on BBC Essex, but he hasn’t pushed much to his Soundcloud recently.

mindXpander

An old favourite of mine from the mp3.com days of the early internet, I first covered them here back in 2013. Things seem to have been quiet for them for a couple of decades now, but you can still enjoy their back catalogue at Soundcloud.

Movement Ten

This Brighton-based duo were first covered here back in December 2012 when they had just released their debut album. The following year when we looked again, they had just released another album, but things seem to have been quieter since then.

Subculture

Featured on my radio show in 2005, unfortunately I don’t have any record any more of who they were, how they got in touch, or where they are now. If you know, please ask them to get in touch!

Devin Tait

First covered in August 2013, then revisited later that year when he was in the middle of touring, this flamboyant LA-based artist is now working on his next solo album The White Tomato. More at his official website.

Finally, I think a few more people had filled in the form on the website and asked for coverage. I’ll sit down and actually read those messages and do a feature on them very soon – apologies for the lack of responses if you’re feeling impatient.

Unsigned Act – Blue Swan (and Subculture)

With this blog and the radio shows that came before it, I have always tried to keep some space available for unsigned artists, but honestly giving them the chance to be written about or to appear on an actual radio station yields surprisingly poor results. In the end, I only ever covered two unsigned acts on my old radio show Music for the Masses (2004-2005), one of whom was Blue Swan.

I must have contacted them via email, and wrote the following…

The duo consists of Henrik Jürgensen, 31, the vocalist and a soon-to-be qualified accountant, and Kasper Lauest, 30, who is the producer and also a psychologist (in the band?) They have been producing music since late 1999, when they met on the first Pet Shop Boys internet forum at Dotmusic, discovering by chance that they had gone to the same high school, one class apart, so they decided to meet up.

They listened to each other’s music, and both liked what they heard. When they heard about the Pet Shop Boys fan tribute project Attribute, they decided to record a cover of A New Life. They liked the result, so continued working together. They continue the story:

Last August, we released our first “virtual” album Sinister But Fragile. The track Black Widow was supposed to have been recorded by a famous Danish artist for her international debut album, but the deal fell through.

They are situated around Copenhagen, Denmark. All of their songs are recorded in their home studio in Kasper’s house. They write their songs together, sometimes in collaboration with Kasper’s younger brother Jakob.

The track Black Widow was done as an instrumental entitled Brutal, written by Kasper and his brother. When Henrik heard it, he absolutely loved it and wrote the lyrics and melody line on top of it. All synth sounds on Black Widow were made using an Access Virus C, while the beat was programmed using Reason 2.5.

Their virtual album Sinister But Fragile can be heard and downloaded in its entirety for free at (a website which no longer exists).

Their favourite band is the Pet Shop Boys, and Kasper’s favourite TV show is 24.

If you’re wondering, the other unsigned act we featured on the show was Subculture, but my only notes for them read as follows:

• “Trash pop”
• New Order
• The Human League
• David Bowie
• OMD
• Suede
• Ladytron

Ross (vocals), Mace (synth), Matt (guitar), and Julia (bass).

You can read our most recent feature on Blue Swan here. If you’re unsigned and want some coverage, please get in touch using the form on the “Are You Unsigned” page.

Where are they now?

We’ve covered eight unsigned acts to date, and since I’ve heard more good things from a couple of them recently, let’s take a quick look at what they’ve been up to!

The first act we covered last year was Jonteknik, who has just released another album The Satellites of Substance. It sounds a bit like Kraftwerk, and is really, really good. Check it out on his official website.

Movement Ten have just done another album too, entitled Build Them and They Will Come. A couple of tracks on Movement Ten were very good indeed, as I said when we listened to them together previously. More information at their website.

And finally – for now – Devin Tait is still touring in the Los Angeles region – read what we learnt about him before here, and visit his website there.

Do you want to be covered on this blog? Take a look at the guidelines in the Are you unsigned? section.

Introducing Rance Garrison

A bit of a change of genre for this week’s unsigned act. Rance Garrison has been writing and recording songs for “almost as long as he has been able to talk.” His debut album Black Crow came out last year, and he’s currently working on his second. Here’s a picture of Black Crow:

Rance “hails,” rather dramatically, from the Appalachian foothills of southwest Virginia. As usual, I asked him to pick just three tracks as a little demo to share. First up is It Still Moves:

“The night is silent like a tomb,” he tells us. I think it’s the haunting piano sound that makes this track rather beautiful. Bonus points for the rather flamboyant ending – I think this is probably my favourite of the three.

Next up is The Last Question:

I’d struggle slightly to categorise this one – it seems darker and altogether more apocalyptic than the previous track, and yet there’s also something decidedly chirpy about it.

Finally from this set, we have Seven Trumpets:

This is the most gentle of the trio, driven mainly by a piano and softer sounds. Things all go a bit discordant towards the end, reminding me – perhaps unintentionally – of Scottish bagpipe music! See what you think…

Rance points out, incidentally, that these tracks are best heard in the context of the album Black Crow, which you can find on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, CDBaby, and also on Bandcamp with bonus tracks and a booklet.

What’s your source of inspiration?

These particular songs (and the album as a whole, really) were written in the wake of several deaths that occurred in my family from 2008 to 2009. It was a sort of dark stretch, but death wasn’t ever far from my mind, and by extension, you could say that my personal spiritual beliefs about God and my understanding of faith and the meaning of life were never far from my mind, either, though I prefer not to think of these songs as an endorsement of any particular religion or of myself as an explicitly “religious artist.” In any case, the themes I was dealing with in my songwriting were at that time, and continue to be, pretty heavy stuff, I suppose.

As far as musical inspiration, I’m inspired by a bit of everything. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits have been big influences on my lyrics. Musically, I’ve been influenced by Pink Floyd, Waits, Dylan, Neil Young, The Twilight Singers, Bon Iver, and a host of other bands from the 1960s up to modern times. I’ve recently gotten pretty into Phosphorescent, but discovered that band after these tracks were written and recorded.

A lot of Radiohead‘s work also really resonates with me, especially from the Kid A and Amnesiac era of 1999 to around 2001. Basically, if it’s memorable and unique, and not afraid to go out on a limb and be a little experimental, I’m gonna dig it.

How long does it normally take to record a track?

I work out of a home studio since I live in a rural area that’s not exactly known as a center of musical creativity and since, at this point anyway, I couldn’t afford professional studio time even if that weren’t the case. On average, I would say that I can record a single track over a period of two to three days, sometimes less than that, and sometimes taking as long as a week or even a month to put the finishing touches on. If I recall correctly, It Still Moves was the last song I recorded for Black Crow, and it was done over a weekend. The Last Question was the first song that was finished, I think, and was recorded here and there over the course of about two weeks. Seven Trumpets was recorded over the course of about a week, I think.

It’s hard to say exactly how much time went into each track just because I’m also a full-time college student and have to do a sort of catch-as-catch-can style. All of the songs were recorded in the late night/early morning hours between work, school, spending time with my fiance, and other responsibilities.

If you could go back and change one thing in your life, what would it be?

On a deeply personal level, I would love to go back and stop the car crash that claimed the life of my little cousin, Stephanie, in 2008. I’m an only child, and she was the closest thing I ever had to a sister, rest her soul. Her death, and the deaths of her father and my great-grandmother that occurred later in 2009 that turned my life upside down (I was living in Nashville at the time and moved back home to rural southwest Virginia to care for family) inspired all of this music, but I’d trade that to have her in my life again.

Also I wish I would have taken greater advantage of the music scene in Nashville while I was there, but again, if that stuff hadn’t happened, these songs wouldn’t exist and I wouldn’t be where I am now, about to finish my bachelor’s degree at the ripe old age of twenty-seven and engaged to a wonderful woman who is my best friend. I met her when I came back home, and I wouldn’t change that, either. Life is funny. The things you wish you could change lead you to where you are, and even if you are happy with the way things are, every man and woman has their regrets. Such is the way of life, I suppose.

Visit Rance Garrison‘s Bandcamp page for more information and to hear more.

Introducing Devin Tait

This week’s unsigned artist may be one of the most patient I’ve ever come across, as I’ve kept him waiting for several months since he first contacted me, but nonetheless he was good enough to take part. His name is Devin Tait, and here he is:

Obviously he didn’t grow up with the story about the old lady who swallowed a fly. Even so, he’s currently recording his second solo release Art Damage in Los Angeles, with his band The Traitors, who are Liana Hernandez (vocals), Brandon Strecker (bass and guitar), and Myles Matisse (drums). The next single You Leave Me will be on its way soon, as will a couple of tributes to someone called The Dream Academy (no, I’ve never heard of them either!)

On his debut album, Devin says he was learning as he went along, largely on his own. This time around, he’s been paying more attention to songwriting, working his way through all the elements. He has, he says, “more colours in [his] crayon box this time.”

Devin was kind enough to pick three tracks for us to hear today, firstly the wonderfully titled Tape:

Tape has a really great bouncy feel to it, and it’s probably my favourite of the three tracks – it particularly sounds like something that would go down well live.

Next up is Digital Representation:

As with the first track, this is taken from the debut album It’s Never the Way You Imagine It, available from Bandcamp via the links in the player. This one is a little more knowingly retro than Tape, with some fun nods to their influences (we’ll learn more about them in just a second).

The third and final track for now is To Be Young & On Downers:

What you’re seeing here is a live performance of a track which will appear on the forthcoming album. Devin tells me that he and his band perform regularly in the Los Angeles area, and this really gives you a feel for how they sound and just how much energy there is on stage when they perform.

Of course, I’m not exactly professional, so as usual I asked Devin a selection of daft and random questions, and here are some highlights from the answers he sent me:

What’s your source of inspiration?

Life inspires me in many different ways, but I also draw inspiration from the Holy Trinity (Phil, Susan and Joanne) and many other friends, family, and musicians (especially people who fit into all three categories). I still daydream like I’ve always done, although these days it’s a lot less about the Thompson Twins coming to save me.

How did you pick the name you record under?

When I started I just went by my first and last name. I went by that in the first few bands I was in. Then, when my brother ended up joining my band in Los Angeles (Shitting Glitter), for some reason I thought it would be better if we switched to using our middle names for our last names, a trick I stole from Melissa and Tracey from Voice of the Beehive. That way people wouldn’t necessarily know that we were brothers, and a lot of them didn’t. They also didn’t know he was dating our lesbian lead singer, and we liked people not really knowing everything.

When I left that band and decided to start doing my own music, I knew I’d want a band for live shows, but I also knew I would want some flexibility. I’ve already basically had two different incarnations of my band, The Traitors (I picked that name not only because it sounded good with “Tait” but because of the opening song on the Sugarcubes‘ debut album) and I envision their could be more. The Traitors might be a dance troupe at some point, or at least include one. This way I can keep it a solo project but with some great help from some of my friends.

If you could go back and change one thing in your life, what would it be?

It would undoubtedly be to go back in time and make myself practice for my piano lessons. I was so lazy about it and so unfocused and I just would never rehearse, or if anything do the bare minimum. I thought it was horribly uncool to learn about the key signatures and the scales and the chords and notation. I thought music should come from the heart, man! It was pretty late in the game when I really realized how much easier music would be able to flow from the heart had I the technical proficiency to back up my imagination!

I’m a pretty awkward pianist. I’ve had church-induced trauma of playing hymns and never knowing what the next chord I played was going to sound like because I knew I wasn’t playing what was on the paper. I do enjoy trying to learn everything now, but now I also get to learn the technology and keep up. Along those lines, if I could change one more thing, I would have learned a foreign language.

A massive thanks to Devin Tait for everything! In case you missed the reference, Phil, Susan and Joanne are The Human League!

Devin Tait‘s official website, including videos and information about forthcoming gigs, is here.

Introducing mindXpander

Kicking off our second batch of unsigned acts is mindXpander, who I first came across an extremely long time ago… They are Patrik Rydberg and David Lijia, who met in a boys’ choir almost 25 years ago. Here’s a picture of their current album Triumphant Return, released last year:

For my part, I originally came across them about fifteen years ago, back in the days of the original mp3.com, and I thought they might be well placed to kick off this series of unsigned acts. They’re a pair of computer and music nerds who love sound design and modular synthesisers, and also seem to be very good friends too. The three tracks they selected are all from Triumphant Return. First is Hoshi No Koe:

My first thought was Vince Clarke when I heard the squelching backing and rhythm on here, but it quickly builds into a sort of Euro-Pet Shop Boys. As far as I can make out, the title translates as Voices of a Star, and seems to be taken from a Japanese anime film.

Northern Lights is the second track they picked, and it’s tagged with things like “laserdance”, “koto” and “Italo disco”. I’m not sure I can really add anything to that, apart from that it’s excellent and the title is very apt.

Finally we have Ad Astra, a trance-flavoured track with a few echoes of the tracks that used to be on mp3.com. It’s been a few years since I was last in the kind of club that plays this sort of thing, but I can see it going down a storm!

As always, I sent a few daft questions to them so that we could understand them a little better, and as is often the case, they answered them extremely well. Normally I edit these, but these are just too good – here are their responses in full…

What’s your source of inspiration?

David: A lot of different things. Can be everything from an artist, a certain sound or a demo of an instrument. I like to dive through presets on my favourite synths. I later change everything to patches we’ve programmed ourselves to get that certain mindXpander sound.

Patrik: Can be a lot of different things. I tend to be influenced by the music I’m listening to. I mostly listen to music in other genres than the ones I’m active in, and even though it’s hopefully not very obvious (I think so at least. Don’t think most listeners will hear metal influences in mindXpander tracks for instance…), I can often listen to music I’ve been involved in making, and hear what other music I was listening too at that time. Also, sounds and messing around with synth, my modular, and studio tech. It’s like a form of meditation to me, or a drug if you will, so even if I’m not inspired to make proper music, I often just play around in the studio, testing out sounds, techniques and ideas, and sometimes those sounds spark inspiration and evolves into proper songs.

At what point during a typical day would I listen to your music?

David: I’m listening to Triumphant Return while commuting to the office and back. It’s a great way to shield yourself from all the noisy commuters on the underground. But I guess it can be enjoyed during a nice car drive along the country side as well. Or with your friends. But preferably when we perform live – which has happened three times since 1998. Yeah, we’re swamped.

Patrik: Well, I don’t think our music is intended for any specific time of day. I’d say anytime you need a bit of added energy in your life. That said, the music is mostly created (and pretty much without exception finished) late at night, so to get that most authentic first listen feel, I’d say 3.30 am.

How did you pick the name you record under?

David: Patrik made it up back in the days and I simply just loved it. I had a couple of other suggestions which we tossed around but he nailed it with this one. He’s in fact really good at making up artist, album and track names.

Patrik: Ah yes! The next album will be named It came from the giant space toad’s left nostril, or possibly the right. Has a nice catchy upliftedness to it.

David: See? We have a winner. Let’s put some donk on it!

What ringtone do you have on your phone?

David: That was actually a happy accident when I was patching my Eurorack modular. I think it sounds like a futuristic phone. My phone’s on silent mode 99% of the time so I never get to hear it though.

Patrik: A small arpeggiated sequence I once created on a DSI Evolver, complemented by distorted drums.

What’s your definition of a bombastic groove style?

David: Cinematic drums are my first feeling. Like the drums in any of the Juno Reactor tracks written for the Matrix movies.

Patrik: A Booooombastic grove is, like, in cinematic music when you have gigantic drums drenched in huuuuuge amounts of reverb, so you have these BomBomBoorrrooomBoBOOOOOOOOM <rattle, shake, sub-bass ending>. An Ooompastic grove on the other hand relies on a combination of brass instruments, predominantly tubas, creating the classic and much loved OmpahBompahOmpahBompahOmpahBompahPomPomPomPom. Bombastic? I don’t know…

David: Yeah, like the track Selecta by Infected Mushroom. Oompah oompah! We should have more of that in our mindXpander tracks!

You can find out more about mindXpander via their official website here.