Music: ease and desist – mad dog

ease and desist album

When it comes to making music, I’ve tended to avoid using too many samples – preferring to create the constituent parts of any track with my own hardware. Over time though, that has changed, and in the middle of 2019 I decided to try working on some completely different styles of music than I would usually.

One thing led to the next, and before long I had a track which was crying out for someone to rap over it. I took to the Internet, and found Maya Miko, who came up with awesome vocals, based on my ideas. The video for that track is below.

Throughout 2020 this pattern continued, and I found myself with a bunch of tracks coalescing around the same kind of musical theme. I tried collaborating with a few different vocalists, but in the end, always ended up going with Maya’s takes.

MAD DOG 2020 is the culmination of this experiment, resulting in a six track EP. It took over a year to put together, and mixing/mastering this was a particular challenge, as adjusting for a totally different genre to what I usually work with was tougher than expected.

The EP is up on Spotify to stream (under the ‘ease and desist’ moniker), and also available for download on the Cow Tongue Taco Records page:

2020 Update

It’s been a while since my last update, and while I haven’t been making a pile of chipmusic, I’ve been busy with a bunch of other projects. Here’s what’s going on:

ease and desist

I’ve been working on a new ‘ease and desist’ album. The tracks are much more commercial than anything else I’ve ever done, and have ended up as a mixture of different styles – primarily taking from the electronica and hip hop worlds – and with some collaborations on there. To accompany the tracks, I’ve created some videos, which are now up on the new Cow Tongue Taco YouTube channel.

Hog Wyld

The artist formerly known as… What started as a one-off project between me and my pal Lee has now grown arms and legs and become a fully fledged band. We have taken the tracks from the initial EP and reimagined them, writing a bunch of new songs and playing a pile of gigs as a three-piece – joined by Al Roney on drums.

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We have successfully crowdfunded our debut album, which we are set to release before the end of summer on vinyl LP. Watch this space… and listen to some of the demos below:

Closet Organ

Closet Organ are still going strong, and over the past year embarked on not one, but two mini tours of the UK – piling into a van and playing to a bunch of weird and wonderful villages.

As well as that, we recorded and released three separate sets of music, including ‘Smells Like Lynx Africa / Fat & Die (an Autobiography)‘ double A Side, ‘Fuck the Home Office’ single, and ‘Bambi Riot / Ginger Blonde Bombshell’ double A side.

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Wyld Organ Studio

After years of playing in horrible rehearsal places with broken equipment, a bunch of us finally bit the bullet and got our own dedicated space to jam, record, and generally hang out in.

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Being able to go in and crank up guitars and have decent recordings is both a luxury and also now almost a necessity that I don’t think I could go back to anything else.

The future…

Right now, thinking about the future seems a bit strange, as none of us really knows what the next few days will bring never mind the next few months. However, once (or if) we emerge from the Coronavirus lockdown, we have big plans. Hog Wyld need to record our album and plan a tour. Closet Organ are in the middle of writing a bunch of new material… but for now it looks like I’ll be confined to my home studio, so that could bring a return to electronica for the time being. More updates to follow. Maybe.

 

ease and desist EP

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Today I released a six track, digital only, self-titled EP under the moniker ‘ease and desist’. It’s far more chilled out and heavily sample based than anything else I’ve done before, so probably fits into the ‘samplewave’ genre that I definitely didn’t just make up. You can have a listen/download over on Bandcamp.

 

Artwork comes from the fantastic Jake Brown.