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I post updates and new music every few days.
'The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum' live in Leipzig
Click the image above to listen to a version of this song played live in Leipzig at the beautiful Horns Erben.
I’m posting more from this show and the next in Freital all week to my Patreon and Bandcamp subscribers. Please sign up to either of those to get all the new music as I make it and support me directly.
Thanks all
Two early versions of songs from the last album now available
Two early version of songs, acoustic and with different lyrics, are now available to everyone subscribing to my Patreon or Bandcamp.
Each month I make a new release for people subscribed there but this is just a little something in between.
The next proper release in the series of exclusives is an 11 song set I just recorded on a very cheap, but very pretty, 1950’s parlour guitar. That’s out on the 1st, my birthday.
Stay well and eat loads. Got to keep the strength up.
Stephen
The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum - review at African Paper
“…sein abgründiger, schwarzhumoriger Sarkasmus, sein Hadern mit sich und allem anderen und sein Händchen, all dies in treffende Sprachbilder zu packen, zu einer veritablen Kunst herangewachsen ist…”
Which, for all my non-German speaking friends translates into something as dramatic as:
“…his abysmal, black-humoured sarcasm, his quarrel with himself and everything else and his knack for packing all this into appropriate language images has grown into a veritable art…”
Read the full review here and please browse the site for a deep collection of dense text about a wide range of stuff. Writing about music indeed.
New album 'The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum' out now.
Good morning.
My latest collection of songs is now available as a limited CD-r and digital download through Bandcamp and here on my site.
This album was recorded at the end of summer in a big empty room in Stuttgart and is a far thicker and noisier set of songs than the previous ‘bottle the grief’ from earlier in the year. I got my hands a bit dirty with it - was a lot of fun to make and not so easy to finish.
It’s available to buy on Bandcamp today and at most other online places in a week or so . I urge everyone to please stick with the Bandcamp option as it helps all musicians enormously.
If you subscribe to me there (please consider doing so) then you get this album automatically and I sent the CDs out to you a week ago.
The physical version has a unique self portrait on the cover - each one different - and is a numbered edition of 100. An A3 size lyric and chord sheet is inside and all Bandcamp orders come with an immediate download.
TRACK LIST
1. We Make Our Own Fun (06:37)
2. How Your Chest Became A Treasure (05:28)
3. Pottery Below (05:08)
4. Down Down Down (02:58)
5. One Bite At A Time (08:11)
6. Get Clear Of Me (06:01)
7. A Place For The Running To Stop (03:34)
8. The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum (15:54)
BUY THROUGH MY SITE
• Eight new songs recorded at the end of summer in Stuttgart.
• Each cover unique - 100 different self portraits.
• A3 lyric sheet.
• First edition of 100 numbered copies.
Tracklist
we make our own fun
how your chest became a treasure
pottery below
down down down
one bite at a time
get clear of me
a place for the running to stop
the ghost is the only one that beats my drum
• zip file of the full album with 320 kbps mp3 files
Tracklist
we make our own fun
how your chest became a treasure
pottery below
down down down
one bite at a time
get clear of me
a place for the running to stop
the ghost is the only one that beats my drum
BUY ON BANDCAMP
Also, from today, my label Woodland Recordings is offering a free 20 track compilation with every order. A couple of my earlier things are on there as well as brilliant songs from many good friends. See and listen to that here.
I’ll perhaps write more about this album in the next days but I’m always happy if anyone lets me know their thoughts on it too. Sometimes it goes somewhere else and recently of course living and working has been as if in a bubble. I have no idea.
So, made this. Stay well and speak soon.
Stephen
Pre-order now live and a very limited vinyl available
My new album, ‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’ is finished and now available to pre-order on my Bandcamp site to be released 04.12.20.
I’ve just finished making 100 copies of the physical edition - a CD-r with an A3 lyric sheet and a unique photo on each cover. 100 copies, 100 different self portraits. The full quality digital edition includes a pdf booklet of the lyrics and a handful of gifs.
Please note - all Bandcamp subscribers will automatically receive this album in a week. if you are a subscriber - thank you but please do not pre-order!
‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’ was recorded in Stuttgart in September and October this year. Loops and percussion for the title track began to suggest structure right after ‘bottle the grief’ was released - I wanted to get stuck into something that I could get my teeth into. Something with meat on the bones.
Julia Laura kindly took some time and sent me backing vocals when the title song was in a skeletal state but otherwise I recorded everything alone in an empty room here. Max Braun helped with sound advice in his studio and finally Spatial Mastering in London communicated wonderfully and worked hard on it last week.
Here’s a simple video for the first song I made a few days ago:
And here’s many more moving images for the title track:
I’ll write and post more about this in a week or so.
Something else - in collaboration with Cosirecords in Oberhausen we’ve made a very limited, super expensive vinyl edition of my 2014 album ‘Kitchen’ available. These are 12 numbered test pressings with simple new artwork and insert.
These are the very last copies we have of this and, right now, the only way to listen to my stuff on vinyl. Nuts.
Making new album, pre-orders coming this weekend
Putting the physical edition of my new album together these days to be ready for the end of the month. New video and pre-orders here and on my Bandcamp this weekend.
THE GHOST IS THE ONLY ONE THAT BEATS MY DRUM
The 16 minute title track from my new album is available as a digital download on Bandcamp and a video on the Woodland Recordings Youtube channel below:
I wrote and recorded this the last few weeks and Julia Laura sent her backing vocals across to me without hearing the whole thing. She’s the voice of reason in this thing.
The video (and album artwork) is constructed from over 500 self portraits I made last week in a forest in the south of Germany, with help from @mart.schneider. I’m putting the album artwork together now and I plan to put it out by the end of November. More soon then.
Thanks all,
Stephen
