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drouth (reprise)

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drouth purpleroutenote.jpg

Writing vocals for electronic tracks is a totally different ball game to other kinds of music, and can be particularly daunting if you come from a more traditional style of songwriting. Because of that, back when I was writing drouth, I found myself hitting a wall fairly frequently, and I wondered what it would be like to ask some other artists I know to give their own take on the tracks if they had free reign to do whatever they wanted to them vocally.

I pulled together a few talented folk who were up for giving it a bash, and despite some initial protests (‘wtf am I going to do with this!?’), they have re-imagined the tracks in some amazing ways… to the extent that the new versions are even better than the originals.

Here’s a bit more info on who is on there…

Andrew Howie

Andrew Howie is a Scottish singer-songwriter with an incredible voice who has been making music on a whole variety of different instruments for as long as I can remember. For this release, he turned his hand to ‘bottle neck’, which resulted in the seriously cool ‘bottle neck heart attack’. You’d think he had been doing this electronic stuff all along.

You can find more from Andrew on his bandcamp.

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Christy Scott is an old young friend and tcheuchter upstart from the true North-East of Scotland. Usually found foraging in the more traditional music world, she brought some impressive soul to new versions of both ‘mex’ and ‘bottle neck’.

Follow along with her inevitable successes on her Facebook page.

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Carly Stambaugh is a fellow Automattician, from across the pond in San Francisco. She wants to be Cyndi Lauper when she grows up, and lended her vocal stylings to a new take on ‘obsolete by design’. Photo credit: Marcus Kazmierczak

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Pulco aka Ash Cooke is a Welsh madman who lives in the middle of nowhere, and a long term collaborator and friend. He is one of the most prolific musicians I know, with a huge back catalogue up on Bandcamp – well worth checking out. He brought his unique brand of spoken word beauty to two tracks: ‘wealth sprouts wings’, and ‘Mr. K’.

As for the music itself, you can download it for free over on Bandcamp, stream it below, or check out Spotify in a couple of weeks when it appears. If you like any of the tracks in particular, give the folk above a shout. I know they’d appreciate the support, and they definitely deserve it!

Mr. K

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It’s been a while since I got pished on a Saturday night and just recorded some music. Well, I ended up recording after an hour of fighting with my mixer to work out why the stereo output was only producing mono…

There’s always the risk that it could have been my crappy soldering, which meant testing out every possible step. So many variables. Surprisingly, it wasn’t actually any of the Gameboys, but the mixer.

I’m pretty pleased with the result, and it should give a hint as to what the next album will sound like. Listen to and download it below:

To finish off, here’s a picture of my tidied up workspace.

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FOE – The Black Lodge (cover)

So here we have it, a totally unnecessary chiprock cover of the Black Lodge by FOE.

I promise to keep my hands off of other band’s songs for a while.

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snore support

If it wasn’t for Toby Hayes aka Shoes and Socks Off, this whole musical adventure wouldn’t exist. He’s been in all sorts of amazing bands, and I’d probably have burned all of my instruments in a fire on Glasgow’s High Street if our paths hadn’t crossed. You have him to blame.

Here’s a light-hearted track with guitar from the man himself, which will be on the next album.

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Man of Lists Profile – PulcoMusic.com

A while back my good friend Pulco aka Ash Cooke asked me to take a couple of poems that he’d recorded and destroy them. 

This I did, and they’re appearing on an album along with the far more musical efforts by other people soon. Have a click through to read a wee feature on me, and more about the album itself.

It’s good; I’ve heard it.

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the economic benefits of individual contraction

So far there haven’t been too many elongated track titles on this collaborative jaunt, so the time is right; the time is now.

Delay Trees are a ‘dream-pop’ foursome from Helsinki, Finland. They have all the delicate nature and sing-songy delight of the rather good Iain Archer, and they provide the ambient background to the latest track. There’s an interesting mix of Gameboys, mandolin and other effects to be found. Drums come courtesy of Keith Grantham, who’s already been introduced.

You can find more of Delay Trees at their Soundcloud.

the economic benefits of individual contraction by unexpectedbowtie

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It was only a week or two ago that we posted introducing Ash Cooke aka Pulco, with the news that he’d be contributing some specially recorded samples to be mashed up (i.e. destroyed) in the name of art… and contribute he did, with a whole stash of bizarre loops and rumblings. In true Pulco style, the ‘misery poet’ utilised everyday objects like a wheelbarrow, and chucked rocks at it till it became aurally pleasing.

You can preview the product below; it’s a dark, grungey affair.

For more info on Pulco, check out the interview from Artrocker that went online today.

pre-medication by unexpectedbowtie

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As weird as it seems to be announcing the release of one record whilst having worked on a totally different one for the past few weeks, that’s the way it goes in the life-cycle of things.

This is an awesome split EP of the 8-bit inspired chiptune electronic variety, with The Wet Dreams taking the first half of the record; myself the second. We took a basic melody for one of the tracks, and wrote our own versions (tracks 3 and 4) which made it all the more interesting.

Click through to the music page for the relevant links and all that.

For those of you not so enamoured with the chiptune side of things, watch this space – there’s other creations in the works.

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It’s done!

Since we’d already posted up the album cover for habeas corpus, here’s the back cover/inlay/whatever you call such things in a digital-only release.

Another fifteen tracks of music in handy downloadable/streamable format… although if you loved the first set, we can’t guarantee you’ll feel the same about this.

Click on through to get your hands on a copy. Or two. Or as many as your bandwidth can carry.