It’s my birthday. I have cheated death for another year!
Therefore, as a present I have made all the music on my bandcamp page free.
You can even get the full versions of the last two eps, extra tracks, artwork, short stories and everything
It’s my birthday. I have cheated death for another year!
Therefore, as a present I have made all the music on my bandcamp page free.
You can even get the full versions of the last two eps, extra tracks, artwork, short stories and everything
Here’s the link for tonight’s online gig. Starting at 7:30: Click here! Click here!
I may have been a little quieter than usual for the last three or four weeks. That’s cos I got married.
Can you say ‘aaaaaaaah’?
Yup, after 9 years my better half and I decided to tie the knot and make public what had long been a private commitment.
Here are the readings we had:
[Inspired by] Carl Sagan:
“The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. Our little planet floats like a mote of dust in the morning sky. All that you see, all that we can see, exploded out of a star billions of years ago, and the particles slowly arranged themselves into living things, including all of us. We are made of star stuff. We are the mechanism by which the universe can comprehend itself. The sum of all our evolution, our thinking and our accomplishments is love. A marriage makes two fractional lives a whole. It gives to two questioning natures a renewed reason for living. It brings a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life.”
Scientific Romance by Tim Pratt [We cut some of this in the ceremony – I bet you can guess which bit – but here’s the whole thing]:
If starship travel from our
Earth to some far
star and back again
at velocities approaching the speed
of light made you younger than me
due to the relativistic effects
of time dilation,
I’d show up on your doorstep hoping
you’d developed a thing for older men,
and I’d ask you to show me everything you
learned to pass the time
out there in the endless void
of night.
If we were the sole survivors
of a zombie apocalypse
and you were bitten and transformed
into a walking corpse
I wouldn’t even pick up my
assault shotgun,
I’d just let you take a bite
out of me, because I’d rather be
undead forever
with you
than alive alone
without you.
If I had a time machine, I’d go back
to the days of your youth
to see how you became the someone
I love so much today, and then
I’d return to the moment we first met
just so I could see my own face
when I saw your face
for the first time,
and okay,
I’d probably travel to the time
when we were a young couple
and try to get a three-way
going. I never understood
why more time travelers don’t do
that sort of thing.
If the alien invaders come
and hover in stern judgment
over our cities, trying to decide
whether to invite us to the Galactic
Federation of Confederated
Galaxies or if instead
a little genocide is called for,
I think our love could be a powerful
argument for the continued preservation
of humanity in general, or at least,
of you and me
in particular.
If we were captives together
in an alien zoo, I’d try to make
the best of it, cultivate a streak
of xeno-exhibitionism,
waggle my eyebrows, and make jokes
about breeding in captivity.
If I became lost in
the multiverse, exploring
infinite parallel dimensions, my
only criterion for settling
down somewhere would be
whether or not I could find you:
and once I did, I’d stay there even
if it was a world ruled by giant spider-
priests, or one where killer
robots won the Civil War, or even
a world where sandwiches
were never invented, because
you’d make it the best
of all possible worlds anyway,
and plus
we could get rich
off inventing sandwiches.
If the Singularity comes
and we upload our minds into a vast
computer simulation of near-infinite
complexity and perfect resolution,
and become capable of experiencing any
fantasy, exploring worlds bound only
by our enhanced imaginations,
I’d still spend at least 1021 processing
cycles a month just sitting
on a virtual couch with you,
watching virtual TV,
eating virtual fajitas,
holding virtual hands,
and wishing
for the real thing.
Black Water, my new EP, is out today.
You can stream it above and buy the full digital and physical versions here. A pay what you want option will be available later in the week which will allow you to download just the tracks without the short story or bonus track.
The full version comes with digital extras:
The main tracks from the EP:
Black Water. Seven Bells is thrown into the Black Water, a salt water lake near Ironbark. The near death experience and his subsequent rescue causes him to have a change of heart. Musically this one deliberately moves from creepy weirdness and 7/4 rhythms to something more melodic and steady, reflecting that change of heart. It ends with what I think of as ‘The Black Water theme’.
Nightfall. Years earlier, Seven Bells John was turned into a monster by The Harpy Dr Margoyles. Musically this one’s all drop d guitar and menacing drone notes. We all hunger for human flesh, right?
Moon in the Water. Musically sparse, this one tells of how Seven Bells is hunted and pursued.
Ghosts in my Dreams Recalling the musical material from Lines Overheard at a Séance, the last song on the EP has John finally acknowledging the ghosts that have been haunting him. This too ends with the Black Water theme.
Here’s the link to download and/or purchase the physical CD
Many thanks to Random Dent and Ash Surrey for the Bvox and percs, and to Joe Slatter for letting me use his photos.
Sid Smith has been taking photos of rain on his windows for years. This year he decided to put ’em up as graphic scores. This is what I came up with for two ‘movement’.
These are electroacoustic/acousmatic pieces, rather than my usual prog rock (Think Artikulation by Ligeti, a piece I loved when studying composition at Uni).
The only sound sources were a wine glass, my bathroom mirror and some water. These pieces are more inspired by the pictures than following them closely as a graphic score.
I thought it would be fun to play along to a field recording of some birds.
So I atttached my guitar to an old midi module I'd liberated from work (It was going to be thrown away otherwise – superflous technology). The midi converter, being of the cheap and cheerful kind, did weird things with my guitar playing. This is what turned up.Last night I played at the Portobello Acoustic Sessions at the Metropolitan pub near Westbourne Park.
The Metropolitan is a lovely pub to which you should go. It has a snug. This is a good thing.
The gig was fun too, despite the fact that the audience was small. Besides myself there was the lovely folk-pop duo Jespa, a wonderful jazz duo – Rebecca Heynes and Sam (whose surname escapes me) and a bloke called Pete who's surname I can't remember.
Find Jespa at http://www.jespa.co.uk
Pete was interesting – sub-Dylanesque three chord non-songs that he didn't play very well. He also turned up clearly off his head, broke a string on his own guitar, didn't treat the guitar he subsequently borrowed particularly well, took too long to get off stage and made lots of noise during one of my songs right in front of the stage.
I wasn't a fan.
I became a little disillusioned with the London acoustic scene a couple of years ago because I always seemed to be on bills with lots of acts like Pete.
Thankfully, Jespa and Rebecca and Sam were fantastic – some of the best stuff I've heard on the circuit for a while and the couple running the night were wonderful.
Lessons to learn?
1. I should gig more – it was fun and I went down well
2. I'm enjoying calling the setlist on the fly – I've done that the last few appearances and it's quite fun. I played a song I've never played before and hadn't even thought of for a year or so – I'll dig an MP3 out of the vaults and share it with you at some point because you won't have heard of it.
3. People like knowing what the song is about – a bit of a speal about the song works well – and I do enjoy telling people about the stupid things I write lyrics about.
So yes, yesterday's gig was lots of fun. Next Month I'm at the Green Dragon in Croydon on October 25th.
Chasing people with missing eyes
Chasing dreams half remember
Falling backwards to where things end
Joe has finished the video for the Beast of the Air and blimey it looks good.
Should I be saying that about my own music video? Well given that aside from gurning a bit and running like a fool, I can take no credit for what you see there. It’s all my brother’s work, from the prop making and filming to the video effects – aside from equipment that he already owned the budget was about £200. I happen to think it looks bloody good for that budget.
Here’s Joe’s website: www.thedarkpower.com
Here’s a link to download the song, and the whole Ironbark album, or buy a CD: http://tomslatter.bandcamp.com
In other news:
A track of mine will appear on the soundtrack to the new book ‘Blood in the Skies’ by G. D Falksen. More details soon, but anyone into steampunk music needs to get a copy.
Here’s a link with a few more details: http://www.gdfalksen.com/steampunksoundtrack .
And here’s the track list – as you can see it includes pretty much every current steampunk related artist.
Disc 1
Disc 2