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I post updates and new music every few days.
'Work With This' from Kiel
Posting recordings from my recent concerts over on my Patreon. Here’s a little song from last Friday.
Free birthday download
Here’s a free / pay what you like download of my last album ‘Work With This’ because it was my birthday yesterday. No chance to post it then so it’s a little late. I’ll keep it like this for a couple of days so please go and grab it while you can.
Hope everyone else had an enjoyable start to the new year.
Stephen
'Work With This' out now
Work With This
Zeppelin
This Is A Calling
Hove Beach And Eggshells
Luck Is Cruelty On The Wind
You Remain My North
Good Night
An album of seven new songs is now available for everyone here on my site, my Patreon and over at Bandcamp.
As a thank you to all Patrons it’s available to download to everyone subscribing, including all at the €3 tier. Please consider signing up over there to support me directly.
I suppose here is the place to share some words about the making of this one.
My last album ‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’ came out in December and whilst I might usually go and play some concerts or get out of the house for some weeks that hasn’t really been an option recently, so I just carried on working on songs. Some of the ways I was working whilst making that album didn’t really change and often things that were started back then just kept bubbling away over time. Slow cooking. I think that’s apparent on a few of the songs here - the ones based on a rhythm and with more percussive stuff in particular. There’s a link, as always, between the albums, but here it’s like I didn’t stop. I suppose I didn’t stop.
This time there’s no one else playing on the thing and it’s generally a little tighter written and structured I think. I cut a lot away, despite there still being a couple of longer songs there. I’ve never been as brave or ruthless an editor as I should be.
‘Zeppelin’ was a song called ‘Four’ that I started about 15 years ago and was originally based around a Neil Young guitar feedback sample. I don’t think I ever played it live but it’s likely that the recording was released ages ago, perhaps on an edition of the ‘Church Boat’ CD or something around 2005. I don’t think anyone will recognise it but if you do please let me know.
Likewise, ‘Hove Beach And Eggshells’ isn’t an old song but is somehow about events that happened around that time when I lived on the south coast of England. Recently I found myself trying to care for a young crow and I think it brought back sentimental memories of nesting gulls.
I’m playing concerts again, starting this week.. No idea if I’ll get to try any of these out but let’s see.
Thanks everyone, have a lovely week.
Stephen
'Work With This' physical edition
The physical edition of my new album ‘Work With This’ is available to pre-order now at Bandcamp and also available directly through my store here.
The album is out on Monday the 5th of July.
This simple edition features a hand stamped CD-r and an A4 lyric and guitar chord sheet. A punch card with the date and time of manufacture is also inside. The sleeve is hand stamped and each is numbered from an edition of 100.
I’ll be sending these out at the start of next week and will also have copies at all my concerts that I am planning, fixing and very much looking forward to.
More info on this album at the weekend, have a nice Friday.
Stephen
Juneteenth fundraiser day at Bandcamp - 'Luck Is Cruelty On The Wind'
A special version of a new song, ‘Luck Is Cruelty On The Wind’ is available now through my Bandcamp page.
This version is an alternate mix and edit of a 9 minute song from my new album, ‘Work With This’ releasing 05.07.21.
Today, the 18th of June is the Juneteenth fundraiser, where Bandcamp donate 100% of their share of sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. I’ll do the same for any digital purchase from my catalogue
Last year, in the midst of the worldwide protests, Bandcamp did the same thing and, with the help of all who picked things up from me I donated $225 to legal aid charities via ActBlue. Things may have thankfully calmed down somewhat but the need is very much still there.
If you’re considering buying any of my music then today would be the day to do that.
Thanks everyone!
Stephen
New album 'Work With This'
My next album is called ‘Work With This’ and is a set of seven songs that continues the themes and recording methods of last December’s ‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’. Since I finished with that album I have just continued writing and recording, having no concerts to fill the time that normally punctuates releases. At a loss as to what to do I’ve just carried on.
The single ‘This Is A Calling’ perhaps follows the last album closer than the rest of the new songs. Constructed around a geometric loop structure and with no thought about having to play the thing live - this and a couple of others came out through headphones and not acoustic sounds, lyrics being worked over and edited. Lines cut up and pasted down. I have been more concerned with rhythm and percussion and for following the threads.
But from time to time it’s brilliant to sit and play the guitar and write down story ideas without such backtracking. A few songs have come easily this way but they’re quieter and perhaps not so suited to whatever space I get to play concerts in later this year. The next days and weeks I’ll try to play more, something like practice is needed. The arms and the fingers feel a little stiff, parts of the guitar a bit unfamiliar and right now performing music isn’t so simple. I need some oil is all.
Perhaps I’ll have more to say about the album and the new songs nearer the time, perhaps that’s enough. It should be out on the 5th of July here and on my Bandcamp and Patreon sites. I’m making the physical edition these days.
Thanks everyone
S
'This Is A Calling' new single now available
A new, 8 minute song is out today to listen and download here on my site, on my Bandcamp page and to everyone subscribing to my Patreon.
'This Is A Calling' was written and recorded last month and appears on the forthcoming album, 'Work With This' which I hope to release next month. It feels like a companion piece to the last album and in fact I'm not sure the process of writing and recording has stopped since I started with that one last Autumn. They've run into each other, here we are.
I made a simple video a few weeks ago, inspired by and including old news footage of pilgrims at Croagh Patrick in the west of Ireland. Here it is:
All my Patreon and Bandcamp subscribers automatically receive this as a full quality download. Subscribe for as little as €3: