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| The Citizen |
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Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2005 4:40 pm
Posts: 14142
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For those of you who have been lucky enough to secure a place at next month's 'BLIP!' album launch party event, I just want to inform you that I'm currently in the middle of writing detailed listening notes for every track on the album. I will personally be reading from these at the event to guide you through the exclusive preview of the album's playback.
BUT, to whet your appetite, and to tickle the fancies of those who, for whatever reason, are unable to attend but who are eagerly anticipating the later, more general release of the album, I'm going to copy below my general introduction to the album's listening notes, here in this post.
BUT...please note: The full listening notes will not be posted on this site until the official release date which, as of writing, has not yet been decided. Nevertheless, all party attendees will be given an official pre-release copy of 'BLIP!' along with an exclusive, limited edition, signed bonus CD of recordings that didn't make it onto the main album. This, along with an exclusive solo live performance, will, hopefully, make the launch party a very special event for fans. I'm very much looking forward to seeing you there! 
So here, for now, is just the general introduction to the listening notes but not the listening notes themselves.:
"Towards the end of 2012 I began work on a series of recordings which were ultimately meant to be released as a double album titled 'Grand Auditoria.' The idea behind 'Grand Auditoria' was that it would touch on the diverse musical styles explored throughout my life as a musician. I hoped each track would reflect a different genre from my past, but with a contemporary twist. These were not to be re-arrangements of old songs but brand new compositions. The album would feature rock, pop, jazzy instrumentals, acoustic pieces, neo-classical orchestral compositions, minimalist electronica, ambient and avant-garde experiments, and so on. It would be a way of celebrating the breadth of my music over the years and, hopefully, illuminate the threads that tie it all together.
As each track for the project was completed, I set it to one side and immediately began work on the next. I didn't dwell on the end result of each piece, didn't even listen back to it beyond the final mix but eagerly moved on in anticipation of the next track.
Gradually, over some months, enough pieces were completed to fill the album's proposed two discs. I called a halt to the recording process and listened through to the accumulated tracks to choose a running order. To my surprise, (and somewhat to my horror,) I realised that what had actually emerged from the months of 'heads down' writing and recording was not at all what I'd originally had in mind. True, there was a certain amount of variety in the material but it appeared to have followed a far more 'pop and rock' direction than I'd originally hoped for. Worryingly, I had no idea why this was the case. I couldn't recall any particular inner or outer reason for it straying into such territory. Somehow, it just turned out that way, seemingly of its own accord.
Creating music in such an intensely focused and seamless manner can instigate a sort of trance-state in the mind of the musician or composer. Hours melt into days into weeks into months and life beyond the studio door becomes an intrusion. I often feel as if I'm existing in an intermediary realm between sensible, pragmatic reality and something far more nebulous, otherworldly and strange. No matter how poetic or romantic that particular description may sound, I am not entirely convinced that such a realm is a desirable or healthy place to locate one's life but, worryingly, it seems that I've long ago lost the will or ability to escape.
Eventually I had to concede that 'Grand Auditoria' had been weirdly hi-jacked by something just beyond my reach and it became clear to me that this was now quite a different album from my original concept and as such required a new title to suit its altered nature.
So...
I temporarily put the 'Grand Auditoria' idea to one side for possible future use and decided to re-think the album's title to better embrace the music that had emerged from the months of recording.
Almost immediately after making the decision to shift my creative gears the word 'blip' came to mind. It made me think of an unexpected event emerging from an ocean of possibilities, a bubble on the surface of a calm pool, a 'blip on the radar,' a happy surprise, a little explosion of air and light against a dark background.
The word seemed to resonate with the way this music had 'popped up' out of the void, and it evoked a sound, an acoustic-organic, but also synthetic-electronic sound.
It was this coincidental sound inference which led me to the idea of creating short instrumental pieces to link the main vocal tracks together. This, I realised, would be a similar approach to the abstract guitar instrumentals I'd used to link the songs on the 'Joy Through Amplification' album, though this time I would be working with more whimsical, analogue synth textures.
I immediately began to record some brief 'linking' pieces, recording them quickly and resisting the temptation to polish them too vigourously. The intention was that they would be be simple, direct, relaxed...light, concise and, hopefully, fun. Just as with the 'Ampex' interludes on the July 2012 'Joy Through Amplification' album, listeners are free to treat them as an album within an album or, alternatively, a set of 'sonic sorbets' to refresh their ears between main courses.
Once these interludes were recorded and set in place within the general running order I then made the decision to release the album as a single disc, rather than as a double, choosing certain tracks for inclusion over others, tracks which I felt offered the listener a more cohesive, developmental journey from the beginning of the album to its conclusion.
The tracks which were 'left over' from this process have been gathered together to create a limited edition, hand-signed CDR album, which I am giving away as an exclusive bonus to those fans who have supported the 'BLIP!' pre-release launch party by attending the event. This limited edition pressing bears the title 'The Tremulous Doo-Wah-Diddy, (BLIP 2.') It further illuminates the process by which these recordings came about."
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and the money situation was so tight that I regretfully stopped my fan club membership and eventually my record buying waned too, which after avidly buying everything I could was quite a come down. So what that all means is that I'm VERY behind the times with the maestro's material and I don't even know where to check where's best to buy the music. ie I seem to remember the mainstream label releases fared well in the charts (Quit Dreaming, Whirls) but it was easy to lose track in those days.