Commissions 2008-2009

Over the last few months I have been putting some free music on this blog as part of a collection of songs entitled Commissions 2008-2009.

The songs include one of the first Calamateur songs ever released, a remix for the folk/indie legend Iain Morrison, a children’s song about the hidden wonders of precipitation(!), an ambient soundscape inspired by one of the streets in Inverness city centre, a soundtrack and, lastly, a hymn!

There are six songs in all and you can now download them as one large file, with artwork included, by clicking here:

DOWNLOAD NOW

Or you can download them individually here (just right-click and choose ‘Save Link As’ to download):

1. Calamateur – Inhabit
2. Iain Morrison – Folklore & Distant Creed (Calamateur remix)
3. Andrew Howie & Cauldeen Primary – The Bad Weather Song
4. Calamateur – Baron Taylor Street
5. Calamateur – The Other Side of Air
6. Andrew Howie – Love Come Down

You can read the stories behind each song by clicking here.

Hope you enjoy the music – if you like you can send a donation my way here.

Thanks for reading!

Limited Edition Calamateur T-Shirts

I’ve had a limited run of Calamateur T-Shirts made which you can buy now from my shop.

Here’s the design (by the great Moose77) a little bit more up close:

The lyrics ‘I need you to follow me home’ are taken from the song ‘I Can Hear Her Breathing‘ which is on my free album ‘Jesus is for Losers‘.

The T-shirts are £15.

To be honest, they’re a little bit more expensive than I was hoping but that’s mainly because I decided to go down the Fair Trade route -

The T-shirts are all made from Fair Trade certified cotton – you can read more about this on the supplier’s website here.

And you can buy the Calamateur T-shirts here.

Greenbelt ‘09: Perfect Moment

On Saturday morning at Greenbelt I was filmed playing ‘Perfect Moment’ for the Greenbelt website.

Here it is:

Or you can watch it on Vimeo.

Thanks to Steve and Rachel for making it happen.

Greenbelt ‘09: Highlights

I’ve just returned home from Greenbelt – a festival of music, art, faith, love, creativity & justice that takes place every year, of which the last few it’s home has been Cheltenham Racecourse.

A recent blog post by Steve Lawson sums up why Greenbelt is so great – have a read here.

Highlights for me this year were catching up with old friends, hearing Dave Tomlinson and Jenny McIntosh talking about ‘So What the Hell Should We Believe?’:

the Sunday morning worship service, ‘Take an Olive Seed’, which focused on the stories of the people living in the land called holy – especially the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories:

having my first cup of chai tea (and another one not long after) at the Tiny Tea Tent:

seeing Miriam Jones at the Performance Cafe:

and having a beer in the Jesus Arms:

(thanks to Jackie for this pic)

I was asked to play this year in the Performance Cafe on the Saturday night – I’ll write about that, plus the other gigs I ended up playing, in my next few posts…..

Commissions 6: Love Come Down

Calamateur – Love_Come_Down.mp3

(This track is the 6th from a new collection of songs entitled Commissions 2008-2009. The 1st one is here, the 2nd here, the 3rd here, the 4th here, the 5th here.)

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Earlier this year I was asked to write and record a song for a DVD being made by Blythswood Care.

The DVD will be shown in churches around Scotland (and possibly beyond) as part of their Shoebox Appeal ‘09 in which people are asked to fill an empty shoebox with items such as toiletries, clothes, stationery and sweets for someone in need in Eastern Europe, India or Pakistan.

Last year 132,000 shoeboxes were sent out, bringing the total since the appeal began in 1993 to 1,122,000.

The song I wrote for the short film (which you can watch above) is called ‘Love Come Down‘.

I also recorded another song, ‘Oh Holy Night’, sung by Heather Jamieson, which is for an alternate version of the DVD to be shown nearer Christmas time. You can see it here.

The super-talented Mark Hilditch played keyboards on both songs.

You can find out more about Blythswood’s Shoebox Appeal here.

Collaborators 6: Richard Vernon and Gareth Saunders

Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing a series of posts on people I’ve recently worked with, with particular reference to my Jesus is for Losers album.

So far, we’ve had:

Steve Lawson (bassist, improviser, teacher, writer)
Mark Hilditch (keyboard player, mad cyclist)
Iain Hutchison (engineer, producer, musician)
DUFI (photography, graphic design, spray paint)
and Phil Moir (drummer)

This is my final post in the series and there’s another couple of people I want to mention:

Firstly, my good friend Richard Vernon, who listens to my music before anyone else and tells me if it’s crap or not.

He also writes my press releases, including the ones for JIFL and the new album by my other band, The Trufflehunters.

Richard has also written some great articles for Sojourners magazine, his most recent being here.

So, if you need a good bio or press release written, get in touch with him here.

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And lastly, Gareth Saunders, who has helped me on countless occasions with web design problems, computing issues and basically any time I wanted to punch my PC monitor in frustration.

Gareth is an Assistant Information Architect / Web Manager at the University of St.Andrews and is also a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. I don’t think many people can say that.

He helped me when I was designing my JIFL website (as well as other websites I’ve cobbled together over the years) and made it look much better than it would have done otherwise. He is a very clever and a very generous man.

You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.

Commissions 5: The Other Side of Air

Calamateur – The_Other_Side_of_Air.mp3

(This track is the 5th from a new collection of songs entitled Commissions 2008-2009. The 1st one is here. The 2nd is here. The 3rd is here. The 4th is here.)

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Last year I was asked to write and record the soundtrack for a short film entitled ‘The Other Side of Air‘.

The film is a documentary about an Inverness-based arts initiative where artists were invited to explore what it means to be spiritual in modern life.

The film was released on DVD in a digipack, beautifully designed by Moose77, who also designed my Jesus is for Losers artwork.

I have a few copies of the DVD to give away – email me at andrew@calamateur.com if you’d like me to send you free copy.

You can view the entire film here:

(I’m a bit of an amateur at uploading videos and for some reason the volume is pretty quiet so you’ll have to turn it up!)

Collaborators 5: Phil Moir

(This is the 5th in a series of posts on people I’ve worked with recently. The 1st post is here, the 2nd here, the 3rd here, the 4th here).

Phil Moir is an immensely talented drummer who I’ve had the privilege of playing alongside on a number of occasions. He’s also a very good guitar player and singer too, much to my chagrin

He played drums on two songs from my Jesus is for Losers album – Perfect Moment and Jesus.

He has also played drums on most of the songs on my as-yet-unreleased new album, and I also get the chance to play alongside him every 3 months or so at Ignite.

Phil makes me think of that cheesy line from Chariots of Fire when Eric Liddell says:

“I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

That’s what I see in Phil whenever he’s behind a kit – the sheer joy, confidence and excitement of knowing you’re doing what it is you’re supposed to be doing.

Phil also teaches drums in Inverness. I can’t think of anyone who would be better at it so if you’re from this area, and want drum lessons, you can get in touch with him here:

phil.moir@drumsense.com

www.drumsense.com

Photo by Marc Tatton

Commissions 4: Baron Taylor Street

Calamateur – Baron_Taylor_Street.mp3

(This track is the 4th from a new collection of songs entitled Commissions 2008-2009. The 1st one is here. The 2nd is here. The 3rd is here. I’ll be releasing more songs from it via this blog over the next few weeks.)

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In my previous post in this Commissions series, I wrote about the Inverness Streetscape project, and in particular the work DUFI and I did with the pupils from Cauldeen Primary School.

As well as recording The Bad Weather Song with the school-children, I also recorded them reading out haikus which they had written based around the theme of water and weather. These were to be incorporated into a second song which DUFI asked me to write.

Here are a few of the haikus:

“An ocean of water splashes
Waves of curly spray foam
Cold and wet“
Ryan

“Twirling and gently falling
From the grey cloudy sky
White soft snowflakes”
Lewis

“Tender sore heart
Pain-filled teardrop
Clearing sadness from your eye”
Lucy

“Hard cold solid
on wintry paths and roads
slippy frozen water“
Courtney H.

This last haiku was sand-blasted into Baron Taylor Street itself, as you can see here, and in the picture at the top of this post.

After I recorded the children reading their haikus at the school, I then drove to Baron Taylor Street itself and recorded several minutes worth of outdoor/ambient noise. Both of these recordings provided the basis of the song.

After adding drum loops, several synth sounds, piano, feedback and a sample of a sound-effect from my 3-year old son’s toy garage (!) and then pulling it all together in ProTools, I then came across these verses in Psalm 147:

He sends his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.

He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.

He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?

He sends his word and melts them;
he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.

These are beautifully evocative verses, and when I read them I thought of the song I was working on straight away. The melody came to me instantly as well – hard to take credit for it really.

I’m really happy with the way the song has turned out, and thankfully so were DUFI.

I hope you like it….more on the way soon.

(Photos by Fin Macrae)

Collaborators 4: DUFI (a wee bit more)

Not long after writing my post about DUFI I received an email from them about their new project, which YOU can help them with.

Here’s what they had to say:

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The National Portrait Gallery of Scotland will be hosting an exhibition later this year entitled Rough Cut Nation.

This unique multimedia project draws together a group of young artists from around Scotland to create a dramatic collaborative installation. For the Edinburgh Festival they will construct a remixed version of Scottish history as informed by street art and graffiti culture, painted, pasted and projected directly onto the walls of the Portrait Gallery.

The project updates William Hole’s original decorative mural scheme of 1889-1898, depicting important events from Scotland’s past. This new installation exploits the empty space produced by the Gallery’s current closure for redevelopment.

The original mural by William Hole portrays elements of Scottish history with strong religious and at times Protestant overtones.

As one of the artist duos involved, we are interested in exploring religious iconography and the use of Jesus as a moral or social catalyst within both Scottish history and contemporary culture.

With that in mind we would like to ask you three questions:

1. In one word, describe who was/is Jesus?
2. In one word, what does Jesus have to do with Scottish History?
3. What impact has Jesus had on Scotland past, present and future?

The answers that we collect from these questions will potentially form part of the final artwork, but will not be attributed to any one individual.
Thank you for your willingness to participate in this project, please send your answers to DUFI.JESUS@GMAIL.COM

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