The Mayor of London is something of an anachronism, both charming and disturbing all at once.
The infamously bumbling Mayor of London has rugby tackled children, sought to deploy water cannons and then volunteered to be sprayed by one when their use was banned, and single handedly cleaned up the streets of the British capital with his brush the day after the riots.
Here is my 8-bit salute to him.
Nat Lyon from Connecticut – friend of the bowtie – has released not one, but two covers of my old track ‘sleeping solves nothing’ – from the 26 hour days album.
It’s a pretty awesome re-imagining of an acousticy number, and you can download it for nowt over on his Bandcamp page here.
Thanks Nat!
In a previous life I was in a band called Closet Organ.
We had a song called ‘Rock! Neanderthal’.
A couple of years ago, Michael M from We Are the Physics remixed the track in a chip-tastic fashion, but for some reason the post about it disappeared.
Re-uploading here as it’s great.
You can download the remix here.
The original is over on the Closet Organ Soundcloud here.
New track. First in 2 years.
Way back in April 2012, intrepid musical explorer Ash Cooke – aka Pulco – got in touch to ask if I’d be up for contributing to a collaboration inspired by some of the many desolate tube stations that lie under the City of London.
Having worked on a host of projects with Ash before, I knew how dedicated he was at coming up with really unique and experimental ideas, so agreed without much thought.
Fast-forward to 2013, and the release is finally (almost) upon us – penned in for the 30th of September.
The format will be limited edition C30 magnetic cassette tapes, each with 3 full colour numbered postcards, a credit sheet, as well as the digital download (obviously). There will only be 30 copies available. Ever. Full stop.
Here’s what the official press release says:
‘Songs For Abandoned Tube Stations’ is an EP of
songs by RELYCS (Ashley Cooke, Adam Leonard &
Stephen McLeod Blythe) inspired by the sights,
sounds and ghosts of the dozens of closed,
unused, or only-travelled-through-at-speed
Underground tube stations beneath the streets
of London. The EP contains 3 tracks – ‘Aldwych
Branch Line’, ‘Lord’s Station’ and ‘Down Street’,
recorded by Ashley Cooke (AKA Pulco), Adam
Leonard and Stephen McLeod Blythe (AKA
Unexpected Bowtie) respectively. The music
literally travels from Cooke’s complex and highly
evocative subterranean soundscape, past
Leonard’s dark, dripping platform of ominous
organ music, terminating at Blythe’s wonderfully
simple yet affective[sic] chip tune Nintendo Gameboy
programming, like the music from some
uncreated ‘Super Mario London Underground’
game. Mind the gap and enjoy your journey…
Aside from my burbling chiptune sounds, the other guys are great at what they do.
For more info on them, check out their respective sites:
Adam Leonard – www.themessagetapes.com
Ash Cooke – www.pulcomusic.com
The EP will be available from Monday 30th September at http://pethaugarw.tumblr.com/
Thanks to Nat Lyon for his take on sleeping solves nothing, from the first unexpected bowtie album… which even features the ring modulated snoring of Newfoundland dogs.
If you fancy ripping apart a track, give me a shout.
unexpected bowtie (and friends) is an album that started in 2011 as a means of collecting different sounds from some of the hardest working, most creative, and most pleasant people that I’d come to know in music.
Taking everything from ambient guitar noises to crazed loops of a Welshman throwing rocks into a wheelbarrow – I pieced them together to produce this jaunty beast.
Despite having been finished almost 2 years ago, and with most of the tracks previewed already, the whole thing has never been quite ready – partially because I still have some samples left over from one band that I’ve just not been able to work out what on earth to do with. (down to my musical incompetence, not theirs!). Hopefully these will make their way into something astounding sometime soon, but the time for this release to make its way into the world is well overdue.
Click on the accompanying artwork above to take you to the new shiny shiny unexpected bowtie bandcamp where you can download the whole thing for free for the first time.
unexpectedbowtie 