Bye bye blog, hello new website

Just a quick post to say that this is the last entry I’ll be making on this blog.

I’m switching over to the blog on my new website which is at www.calamateur.com.

If you’re a regular reader then thanks for being interested 🙂

The Quiet in the Land (teaser-trailer)

Here’s a short video teaser-trailer I made for my new album:

The Quiet in the Land

I have a new album I’ll be releasing soon.

It’s called ‘The Quiet in the Land’.

Here’s the gorgeous front cover artwork (designed by Al)

I finished this album a few months ago but I’ve been putting off releasing it. It’s funny, it doesn’t matter how long I do this music lark, I still get fearful about letting other people hear the noise that I’ve made. And in this case there is quite a lot of noise, which is perhaps why I’m feeling a bit reticent.

When I put out my last long-player ‘Each Dirty Letter‘ (which was, to my ears, my most accessible album to date) I had this to say:

“Look, I l know I’ve been doing this with little success for over 10 years, and have at times been unfocused and genre-hopped way too much, BUT when I do focus, and when I get the right people to help me out, this is the kind of music I’m capable of making. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I hope it’s the start of something new.”

Well, my new album genre-hops all over the place, sounds NOTHING like my last album and was predominantly written, played, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by me alone.

So much for not being unfocused then.

Most, if not all, of the music I’ve made has felt like something I’ve had to get out of my system, but this album feels even more like that than usual. It’s noisy, angry, experimental, at times poorly recorded and, all in all, pretty frickin’ dark.

And speaking of frickin’, there’s a few choice words on the album as well. So if that’s not your thing then please just avoid it altogether. Normal service will be resumed soon enough… probably.

‘The Quiet in the Land’ will be out on the 14th November 2011.

The Sky Throws You

The annoyingly talented Iain Morrison and Daibhidh Martin have released a single this week, to which I’ve contributed two remixes.

The A-side itself is just gorgeous. Entitled ‘The Sky Throws You’, it  features guest vocals from Anais Mitchell.

The second track is my remix of ‘The Sky Throws You’. I’ve transformed it from a beautiful little love song into a Blade Runner-esque electronica epic that could quite happily soundtrack a stalker’s… stalking. At least that’s the idea.

The third track is my remix of an unreleased track by Iain & Daibhidh. Again, this is a fairly disturbing and dark little number that starts off brooding and slowly becomes a rock anthem of stadium proportions… or something.

Boy, am I glad I don’t write my own press releases.

Anyway, I had a whole lot of fun working on them and they give a little indication of what my next album is going to sound like.

It’d be great if you could go buy the single.

Here’s some links:

iTunes
emusic
Amazon
Play

And here’s a video of Iain, Daibhidh and Anais performing the single live in Edinburgh just a couple of weeks ago:

11 Reasons Why 3 is Greater Than Everything

My collaborator and friend Steve Lawson has a brand new album out, and it’s another gorgeous slab of ambient solo bass genius.

You can give it a listen here and pay whatever you think it’s worth to download it.

I sat down to listen to it for the first time a few days ago and live-tweeted a track-by-track review. Steve collected the tweets into a cool collection using Exquisite Tweets. You can see what I wrote here. Suffice to say, the album’s awesome 🙂

The New Conspirators

I think I first came across the author Tom Sine at Greenbelt, probably as a reading recommendation from the great John Smith.

At the time his newest book was ‘Wild Hope’ – a book I bought, which I knew was meant to be amazing, but yet never got around to reading. And the thing with Tom Sine is that, among other things, he’s a futurist. He tries to make predictions about what the world is going to be like in a few years time so that we can prepare ourselves to deal with the problems we’re going to be facing. But once that future arrives, there’s not really a lot of point in reading a book that predicted it. So every few years Tom Sine produces another book. The latest is ‘The New Conspirators’ which, thankfully, I did get round to reading.

He’s also a Christian, which means he sees the hope for our world lying in the teachings of  Jesus, and in Jesus himself. This may seem fantastical to some (as it does to me, and *I’m* a Christian, albeit a sometimes doubtful one) but I admire Tom for his unapologetic adherence to Jesus’ ways.

It’s an inspiring, well-written but worrying read as it faces head-on the challenges we may be up against in the coming years.

Here’s a couple of my favourite snippets:

“At the core of the modern worldview underlying globalization is the assertion that the ultimate in human experience is defined primarily in economic terms… it is increasingly colonizing the imaginations of peoples all over our planet to buy into its notions of what constitutes the good life and better future….

Our Christian faith… affirm(s) that the ultimate will only be found in a different reality and a different dream for the global future, defined by the restoration of our relationship to the creator God. It is a dream in which the ultimate is found in seeing broken lives restored. It is a dream in which justice finally comes for the poor, wholeness for God’s good creation and shalom for the nations.”

—-

“Remember that Jesus’ empire was not ushered in with pomp and circumstance. It had its origins with a baby born in a cow stall in an undistinguished village in the Roman Empire. When Jesus began teaching, he made clear that his new empire would be unlike any empire the world had ever seen. It came on a donkey’s back. It’s ‘Imperial Council’ was comprised of a handful of unemployed fisherman, a couple of I.R.S. agents, a prostitute and some other hanger-ons. Jesus demonstrated how to wield his imperial power by washing feet, telling stories and playing with kids. Jesus’ empire is based on the absurd values that the last should be first, losers are winners and the most influential in this empire should clean the toilets.

Members of this empire are instructed to love their enemies, forgive their friends, always give twice as much as people ask of them and never pursue power or position. Jesus insisted that those who are a part of his empire shouldn’t worry about finances, but simply trust God. The resources to run this empire were basins, towels and leftover lunches. This empire also developed a reputation for constant partying – almost always with the wrong kind of people.

Seriously, is this any way to run an empire? Imagine what would happen if you ran a political, economic or even religious institution with these bizarre values. Clearly, it wouldn’t have much of a future. These values might even get the leader assassinated. It is essential that we remember that this unlikely empire is destined to defeat the evil that victimizes our lives and brutalizes God’s world.”

Behind the Glass

It took me a while to get through this book but it was worth it, particularly for the following gems of wisdom which are about producing records, but which could arguably be applied to all walks of life:

“I guess my advice would be – have a hell of a lot of fun, and don’t let anybody tell you anything is wrong. Just do what you think sounds right. If you like the records I do and send me a record for criticism and I say, ‘Well that sucks,’ don’t let that influence you – hey, I’m an old fart. (laughs) Go do what you feel, regardless of what anybody tells you. Use any means necessary to get the best performance out of the artist. Sublimate your ego and focus on whatever techniques you can use to get the artist’s vision on the record in the best possible way. That way, you’ll be the next you, rather than the next anybody else.”
– Craig Leon (producer of Ramones, Blondie and Suicide)

“Just don’t be afraid to experiment. That’s very important. Most of what we do comes down to experience, and there’s no substitute for that. So just spend a lot of time on it and mess around and experiment. Do crazy things, break the rules. And if you like the sound of it, then that’s great. Have confidence in your own subjectivity; if it appeals to you, and you think it fits with what you are doing, then do it. You don’t have to be a purist about things. If it sounds good, then it doesn’t matter how you got that sound.”
– Mick Glossop (producer of Van Morrison, Frank Zappa & John Lee Hooker)

“…when you’re dealing with musicians, you’re dealing with gentle souls. We’re all from the same tribe; we’re all trying to do something that’s art. We’re doing it to please someone else; we’re all here for that reason. Maybe your form of pleasing someone is to get a number one record, or maybe you just want to get that pat on the back from your fellow musicians who say, ‘Man, that’s some great shit.’ This is what I live for. I don’t live for my position on the chart or how many copies I’ve sold, how much money I’ve made. My reason for doing it is to get that musician guy to say. ‘That sounds really good, man’ – I love that. But we’re all here to do that, so if it’s not coming around, we feel like shit, we want to run back home. So you’ve got to be able to anticipate it and know how to handle it.”
– Walter Afanasieff (producer of Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton & Kenny G)

“I talk about this all the time to people who see where I’m at and think I just woke up one day and I was here. It doesn’t work that way. This was a passion for me and something I just unconsciously did, and I knew I would succeed. In many ways, the best thing that kids that are starting out have is the naivete of not knowing what they’re up against; that’s their best ally. When I was a kid, the most positive thing I’d ever get was, ‘Yeah, you should really go for it and try it, but you need something else in case it doesn’t work out, because a lot of people are trying to do what you’re trying to do.’ In my head, I would think, ‘Fuck you, I’m going to make it, I’m not everybody else.’ That’s what you need. That’s what gets you through it….”

“…If you’re doing anything for money, or you’re not doing it because of money, right there is a dangerous little road to go down. I’ve turned down a lot of things where there was a lot of money offered, but I hated the fucking music. It wasn’t even hard. I just thought, I can’t see myself working on this. And if you’re really into something, even if there’s not as much money as you’d get to do another thing, you’d be an idiot not to do it. If you’re into it, you’re going to get fulfillment out of doing it. There are some people who don’t think that way, but they’re doing it for the wrong reasons, anyway – they don’t have a genuine motivation going on.”
Danny Saber (producer of Rolling Stones, David Bowie & Public Enemy)

Eels

Having racked up over 800 plays by Eels over the last twelve months, I think it’s fair to say I’ve become a big fan.

It’s taken me a while to get there. Somewhere in my crazy head I had lumped the bands Sparklehorse and Eels together (both of them being outlets for American solo male singer-songwriters who make music that, in E’s words, “might make people get up to check and see if something was wrong with their stereo”) – and for some weird sub-conscious reason I thought I had to choose one over the other, and for years chose only Sparklehorse.

It was reading Eels’ Mark Oliver Everett’s ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know’ that finally got me listening to them. It’s an amazing book which isn’t just for music fans; in it he talks about the death of his father, the suicide of his sister, the long battle his mother had with cancer, and of how he coped with all this tragedy – with music being the main force that kept him alive.

Here’s two of my favourite bits from the the book:

“When you’re a kid and you’re watching your favourite band on TV, it just looks fun and exciting. But it turns out that, in reality, to do it, and to try to do it well – really caring about how it turns out – is extremely hard work and a very stressful lifestyle. It’s not for anyone who isn’t totally devoted to the mission and willing to give up any kind of real life. Because no one will ever care about your stuff as much as you and there will be daily battles to fight – hard, lonely battles. And they never seem to stop for me.”

“That’s the thing about fans. If they like one thing you do, and you don’t do the same thing again, they can feel let down. I never understood that way of thinking, so it means nothing to me, sorry. Why on earth would you want everything to be the same all the time? You can go back and listen to ‘Daisies of the Galaxy’ anytime you want to. I don’t need to do it again. That said, I don’t set out to dazzle the world with my ‘versatility’. I just have some things in me that need to come out. If you only like one kind of music, sorry again, but life’s too short. Every record I’ve ever put out has been met with some torrent of angry fan mail because it wasn’t what they expected. If you want what you expect, why not make your own album then? I’m just trying to make mine and it’s probably not what you’re expecting. I’m glad we had this little talk.”

And here’s the song by Eels I’m relating to most at the moment:

Fuzzy Bass

Hissy Bass