Villa Müller, Feldkirch
Photos above by Katharina Koutnik from my concert at the beautiful Villa Müller a week or so ago.
I stayed there a few days, played a concert on the Sunday and then recorded most of the next day. I played some old songs but also wrote some new things and played some instrumental ideas. I’ll post the complete set of things I made on my Patreon and Bandcamp sites soon but in the meantime here’s a little idea of what happened.
'This Is A Calling'
I’ve been writing and recording a lot the last few weeks and next month I’ll be ready to share some of the new music I’ve been making. I thought the album was done and just needed mixing and then a few days ago one of the very new songs I had started writing kind of expanded and overnight grew into something that surprised me so it meant that I had to rethink the sequencing and the structure of the whole album. It had felt almost done and then two more things came out and now I have to juggle it about a bit and perhaps do some more editing. Felt like a delay but fine, good for the work to be flexible and malleable, that’s when it’s exciting.
'Lover O Lover' from last month out in the forest
The next in the subscription series of monthly releases is ‘Second March’ and will be available at the end of the month through my Patreon and Bandcamp sites. I recorded a bunch of music, including two new songs, outside in the forest at the same spot where I had previously made ‘March Wood’.
Digital and physical, where the physical edition follows the previous ones - a hand stamped CD-r, typed personalised cover and only available for the month of April.
Also as a reminder - you just have until the end of March if you’d like to receive a copy of the double disc edition of ‘The Complete Simple Folk Radio Recordings’. Available at the €15 option through the Patreon or Bandcamp subscriptions.
More details and images in a week.
Julia Laura 'I Lock The Door Upon Myself'
This is my buddy Julia’s second album, which I recorded and put together over the last year or so. I recorded her first album too, a simple acoustic collection that we put down in a few afternoons, but this time Julia had written songs with space and parts for more instrumentation. We set up in three or four houses last summer in between travels and when we were able to meet. Her friend Mark Timmins had some great electric guitar parts so I started with recording the two of them playing the songs together at his place in Nürnberg in the few hours before his girlfriend finished her shift. Later, in Bayreuth, Josua Bauer (Vincent von Flieger / Nick & June) played some horn parts and accordion and later still, at Julia’s parents house in Fürth, Elena Steri sang some backing vocals whilst her folks quietly prepared dinner in the kitchen. I think there’s also a couple of songs that Julia played in my little bedroom in Fürth on there too. I like to record this way, in rooms where there’s a chance for coffee and books, things placed carefully on the wall. Also a window of opportunity whilst the house is quiet, some gentle pressure on things.
Early one morning Julia went out with Mina Reischer and they shot a roll of medium format film by the river in Nürnberg. Mina works on a lot of the artwork for the label and is something of the house portrait maker.
I mixed it in a couple of different places and then a few weeks ago we got together in Stuttgart and cut paper, stamped pictures and made some copies of the physical edition. Julia sang a couple of songs and I filmed them, like this:
It feels a bit like the album started at a gallop and then lost a little wind towards the end as the different elements and people involved were kept apart by distance and the virus. But recently it’s been brilliant to meet and wrap it up and finally make it available for everyone. I know Julia has new songs and new sounds she is hearing and perhaps there’ll be something else coming from her soon.
Anyway, we made this fine thing together and it’s out now.
Stephen
ps - Julia and I are playing in Nürnberg next weekend - 29.08.20 at Luise.
bottle the grief
Hi everyone
I have a new album of eight quiet songs that’s available for pre-order now and will be released Friday the 1st of May.
‘bottle the grief’ was recorded over three evenings in the back room of L.A. Signorina in Stuttgart a few weeks ago. One or two of the songs were written just after Christmas but most of them come from the first days of the lockdown when I was in Switzerland and then Stuttgart.
I have in mind to record some of these songs again with other musicians when we’re all able to move about a bit easier and these nights were always just about trying some new things in a good sounding room. The songs came full of words but light on tunes and it’s not perhaps the most sonically exciting thing to listen to. But as with all things it’s just a record and what was written and made and there’ll hopefully be more to come soon.
The album is available digitally through Bandcamp here and this time the physical edition is exclusive to those signed up for the Bandcamp subscription. There’s a few reasons for this - clearly putting together a physical release is a little difficult at the moment and I also just wanted to make something very intimate in a small edition. I’m also obviously not playing concerts at the moment so there’s really little opportunity to sell a lot of CDs. But if you choose to sign up for the 15€ subscription I’ll send you a copy, plus you get 6 albums to download from my back catalogue and the previous two subscription only releases. If you stay subscribing you get a new release every month. I think it’s a fair deal and it certainly helps me out a lot at the moment.
Please click here for more information at Bandcamp.
If you would prefer to use Paypal that’s absolutely possible and I have a page with a button here.
Anyway, the album is available as a hand stamped CDr with a hand typed cover and lyric sheet in a 100% recycled sleeve, sent to you wherever you are. You’ll also get a digital download of the album in a choice of formats whilst you wait for that to arrive.
A song ‘a carrion call’ from the album was posted to my Bandcamp last week as free download. I wrote this and played it twice and this is the second take. Didn’t have a final verse, just goes like that. You can listen and grab that here:
Here’s a very simple lyric video for the Youtubes.
All in all I recorded about twenty songs in the restaurant and the other half of them will most likely be next month’s Bandcamp subscription. Acoustic, different versions of songs I’ve previously recorded, like ‘The Hills Are Alive’, ‘Boys, I Am Worried’ and ‘SUPER GOOD ADVICE’. They all hang together as another thing somehow.
This is what I’ve been doing, hope some people are into it. Let me know please how you are doing and if you have any questions about any of this stuff.
Take care
Stephen
Empty Room
Empty room in my flat this weekend so this was my Saturday night. I think it’s a six song EP coming at some point but will have the St Arbogast church recording ready before then. Soon.
'A Day' - new album available now
My latest album ‘A Day’ is now available to listen and buy at https://thegreatpark.bandcamp.com/album/a-day.
‘A Day’ was recorded entirely on the 14th of May in a tiny hut in the countryside near Baach, Germany. I had written a bunch of things that I thought could be put down but when I got there a lot of it changed and I spent an afternoon and most of the evening writing and playing as I went. The album is a loose thing, as most of my things tend to be, and perhaps I’ll get the chance to record some of these songs later and with other people. I suppose I work better when I’m inspired by a place and have a limited amount of time there, so I thank Martina for giving me the chance to hang out in this wonderful little space and wander about in such beautiful surroundings. She also took the photos you see here and the one on the cover, whilst I filmed some for the simple video below:
Of the songs, I think these sit in an in between place for me. I have an album of kind of playful things, light, often saucy text written over the last few years and I’ve recorded some of these songs in different places already without putting them out. But I also had these new ones and it didn’t feel like the right time or place for anything else. At least three of these were written on the day (‘now we know how we won’t’, ‘a kind of dog is not a cat’ and ‘what you fear to be the end comes around’ for sure) whilst the others had melodies and most of the text set beforehand.
I’ve been playing a few of these at the recent shows and they seem to be coming out different already, which perhaps goes to show what a collection of sketches this is.
Anyway, this is what I make.
Thanks for listening,
Stephen
Back to the countryside.
Has been a full and fun weekend in Hannover and last night in Bonn. Not enough sleep but nice concerts and very enjoyable evenings both of them. I’ll probably write more in the next couple of days but mostly big thanks to Ceven and to Timo for the invitations and the good company.
Tomorrow I’ll drive back up the hill to this beautiful little spot and hopefully spend a couple of days finishing the album I started last week. I’ve had a few days to listen to everything and decided to leave the songs as they were written but perhaps just play some more guitar and sing a little on some of them. Wanted to do everything in the same lovely place. Nothing feels in any way clever or too considered, which I like, but I do feel that some of the things could use a little more meat on the bones. Perhaps I pile it on and then take it all off and it comes out as just the recording I made in a day. Let’s see. In any rate, I’ll be here if you need me but the internet is off.
I hope you’ve had a fun weekend too, more soon.
S
New album recorded yesterday.
Photo: @mart.schnieder
I’ve spent the last two days living in this delightful little place on a hill in Esslingen, in the south of Germany. No internet but electricity, a wood oven and fierce running icy cold water. Power socket for the recorder. Surprisingly noisy from local farmers and flight path but a productive time nonetheless. Listen, I just got back to a warm shower and all that goes with it an hour ago so will write more later, but suffice to say I recorded the album of ten songs I wrote last week and will work on putting it together and seeing if I can live with it tomorrow. It might not come out, right now it sounds very intimate and I don’t know who the person singing is.
Oh, I’m playing in Thun this Friday with a drummer, in Ulm this Sunday night and next week in Erlangen at E-Werk. More on those things later, but for now good evening warm, fuzzy glow of the internet.