Cwtch – “Silver” EP nothing to do with global sports shock!

Hello,

As you may well know, when I’m not recording as Dementio13, teaching as ‘Sir’, or moaning/ruminating as Paul The Miserable Bastard, I’m recording as Cwtch with my  talented antipodean collaborator Marie Craven. We’ve been really quite busy over the past few months, what with new solo releases and (in Marie’s case) preparing/rehearsing live projects. But we always find time to make some new stuff as Cwtch.

Well here is our latest offering, released to no particular fanfare, with no big promotional ‘build-up’. What can I say about it? Well, we’ve made music which we want to hear. We’ve made the music despite a distance of thousands of miles between us. We’ve taken the best bits of what we do as solo musicians and thrown them into the blender. 5 songs which call to mind music past and present, mainstream and niche.

I hope you can share in this music….and, of course, if you like what you hear, share it with others….. we kinda rely on that.

SILVER

Please enjoy.

Tank Yew

Hello electro-beings. I’m trying to unwind my head from a manic period of work by listening to Kraftwerk’s ‘Tanzmusik’. It is, indeed, bloody lovely: driving, melodic, whimsical, ethereal…

Anyway, it dawned on me that it was only just over a week since I released ‘El Lissitzky’, my 6th album (or, to be more correct, my twelfth album….but one I haven’t deleted!). It seems like it’s always been around, not just sitting on Bandcamp for nine days. Anyway, in those nine days, people have been downloading, tweeting, sharing, blogging about and reviewing it; just as I’d hoped. So, thank you loads, people. You are the glue that holds this independent/DIY music thing together.

I’d also like to thank a few broadcasters who have supported the music and, particularly, played tracks off the album on their shows. These include Mark Ryan at Amazing Radio and Pete Jackson at Dandelion Radio…..both stations championing new, emerging music and I thoroughly recommend them.

Also, whoever has put my music on torrent sites or free download sites……thanks. My music seems to be cropping-up in all sorts of places.

So, what’s next? Well, never one to sit about on my arse, I’ve been busy working on music for my renewed collaboration with Marie Craven, known as Cwtch. At the risk of alerting the self-congratulation police, I am really liking the sound of the new track in progress. Well, I would wouldn’t I? That’s why I make music….to hear music I actually like!!!

The new Cwtch stuff will be available whenever it’s ‘finished’. Early days yet….

Love and Cheetos to you all…..

Recommended – Churn Milk Joan, Severed Heads and Bratislava

Yep, I’m blogging again….I love to blog, yessiree.

Anyway, after a quick trawl of Bandcamp (something I don’t do enough of); I’ve found some music, old and new, to get excited about. Most of it is pay-what-you-want/free.

These aren’t reviews, let’s be clear about that. I’m just pointing you in their direction because I think the music’s marvelous.

Churn Milk Joan – One

Richard Knutson (a member of Plum Flower Embroidery) and Colin Robinson (Big Block 454) push all the right buttons with a finely-judged balance of eccentricity and accessibility on their new mini-album. Touches of Bowie, Talking Heads and prog with sprinkles of electro-funk. Pay-what-you-want, but worth paying for.

Big Block 454 – Bratislava

The aforementioned Colin Robinson’s other band. Highly prolific producers of oddness which melds Zappa, funk, jazz and prog-rock in an extremely attractive musical parcel. I really love their music and this album is worth downloading for the track ‘Anglezarke’ alone.

Severed Heads – City Slab Horror

The cover to this album gave me the shivers when I was 17. Utter brilliance from Australian avantist Tom Ellard’s long-standing music project. I was delighted to see that the Heads had joined the Bandcamp revolution, providing every release they’ve recorded since 1979. Severed Heads were hugely influential on electronica and dance music: pre-empting electro, trance and cut-up samplism by about 10 years. Expect weirdness and darkness and a sly sense of humour. Like Cabaret Voltaire without the relentless seriousness.

What’s Been Happening and What’s Coming Up

Yep….. time is marching on. I’ve been extra busy doing the dayjob, which I expected, it’s always a bit manic after Christmas. So I’m glad I got a bit obsessive, writing and recording new tracks between September and December. It seems like all the hard work is done on that front. The new album’s been uploaded to Bandcamp for quite a while. Preview links were sent to a few selected people; people who have supported and encouraged me over the past few years.

Over on Dementio13.com I’ve been experimenting with pre-orders, with mixed results. So, the experiment has paid-off in enabling me to realise that pre-orders are fairly pointless in my case. There’s no real benefit for listeners or for me. That’s not a universal truth though…… some bands/artists may find it works for them, particularly if they’re taking physical orders such as CDs or USB drives.

So, here’s where I repeat myself from previous posts. The album, ‘Crash St’ will be available on 1st March as a pay-what-you-want download (pre-orders are still available in the meantime for an ultra-low price). As way of celebration, I’ve got another live mix on Dandelion Radio, on Pete Jackson’s show throughout March from the 1st.

I’m also currently working (rather slowly) on a remix for Marie Craven’s project with Canadian DJ/producer Crimson Death.

In 9 days (20th Feb), Pinklogik releases her album of remixes of her track ‘Playing With Sticks’. My remix is track 12. Here’s a little preview of the whole album in bitesize chunks:

And here are four preview tracks from ‘Crash St’:

Musician/writer Oliver Arditi said this about the album:

“I listen to a lot of entirely electronic music, but most of it is either of a relatively superficial, energetic nature, or it deliberately exploits the coldness and impersonality of synthetic sound. Dementio 13 has mastered the art of creating human music, organic music that breathes, while capitalising on the power and impact of the machine. It’s not dance music, though it utilises a lot of dance music vocabulary, and it isn’t rock, although it likewise employs its language. It’s just what it is: music that challenges, stimulates and entertains, and while it’s like a lot of other things, there’s nothing else that’s quite like it.”

While Dandelion Radio DJ Mark Whitby writes:

“a sneak peak of his forthcoming Crash St album (due on 1 March) reveals him to be still moving forward in invigorating and never predictable directions, his exploratory electronica more varied in texture and mood than pretty much any of his contemporaries.”

So, there you are. Am excited, enthused and very happy about it all. That’s all that’s fit to print at the moment. Enjoy your weekend.

This was 2011

We all look back. We reminisce, evaluate and re-live (and possibly over-sentimentalise) moments at this time of year. Today, I’m going to be no exception. Well, apart from the over-sentimental bit……..cos, y’know, I’m a heartless bastard.

Anyway, rather than go on about my own achievements and talk about how great 2012 is going to be (unless the apocalypse occurs, etc), I’m going to mention the characters and artists who I’ve discovered (or who I was already aware of, but re-discovered) in the last year.

So, what was the big idea this year? Well, mostly, sharing. It seemed like 2011 was the moment Twitter started working for the independent artist. Sure, it had existed as a connecting tool for most musicians and their audience, etc for years before, but it seemed that 2011 was the moment it hit its apex for a majority of these artists. Then it became de rigeur to have a Twitter account, then it seemed to get oversaturated almost instantly…..though this is my perception of events….probably not the ‘truth’. But it feels like the day will come when Twitter is populated by just musicians, artists, photographers, film-makers, etc; each cross-promoting each other’s ‘product’ in an endless feedback loop. This is not a prediction of course…it’s just bollocks.

I’ve now deleted my Twitter account and every other form of social media. It’s now the thing to promote your music via Twitter and Facebook, but being a bit of a contrary-wise kinda guy, I’ve bailed out. The semi-pros and pros may baulk at this; but, hey, it suits me.

So, why am I posting about Twitter…well, ironically, it’s where I’ve connected with some fantastic artists, musical and otherwise, who have also turned out to be great, stand-up, nice people. So, as one last hurrah, here’s to these wonderful Twitter folk (if you tweet…I recommend you follow them and, more importantly, ‘connect’ with them and listen to their art):

• @Pixieguts (Marie Craven) – incredibly talented vocalist and my long-time collaborator with Cwtch. She’s also an all-round culture-head, into history, science and spirituality. Blogger, Oliver Arditi says of her: “Pixieguts is a truly excellent singer” and “Craven’s undramatic but deeply expressive vocals have a rich physicality that comes both from technique and experience”.

• @itoolan (John Toolan) – funny, knowledgeable, music-loving, film-loving guy with a great sense of humour (this is not a quote from a dating site). He writes very authoritatively about music and stuff on Music To Wash Up To…

• @mecotterill (Mark Cotterill) – humorous truck-driving graphic designer who also writes and makes music. Underfollowed.

• @oli_the_bass (Oliver Arditi) – I’ve already posted about Oli on here recently; he blogs about music and plays bass, though not at the same time I assume. Intelligent critiques and always a good read.

• @deonvozov (Deon Vozov) – Professional audio-visual soundtrack artist/composer. So talented and knowledgeable it hurts. Also disarmingly open and actively refuses to mythologise about her craft. To top it all, she really converses and is a damn nice person.

• Then there are the ‘hardy perennials’: @dandelionradio @adicarter @sk123_tunes @big_block_454 @healeyisland @pinklogik and @mattstevensloop. All talented musicians and great conversationalists. Most of them are from the old Last.fm network and have been incredibly supportive of my music over the years.

So, there you have it. If you’re going to follow one piece of advice from me this year, follow the recommendations in this post.

Not so much a review of 2011, more of a glorified #ff! But, in doing so, I think I’ve summed-up the cool music and writing that I’ve encountered this year. Hopefully I’ll be keeping in touch with all the above despite my social networking prohibition.

As for 2012, well…the end is nigh, innit?

Reviews, releases and performance

Hello, you. As per usual, I’m very busy with ‘work stuff’ and am still able to spend quality time writing/recording music. The new album is coming along quite nicely though; I’ve got a decent body of tracks collected together which I’ll whittle-down to around 1 hour of music at some point. What keeps me going is, of course, the sheer pleasure (and occasional frustration) that comes through playing and recording music; as well as the occasional kind words of listeners, fans, friends, musicians and reviewers.

And so, it was particularly pleasant this week to receive, not one, but two reviews from writer/musician Oliver Arditi. Now, I’d been reading Oliver’s blog before these reviews, on a recommendation from Matt Stevens. His writing impresses me for a number of reasons. He writes about music on his blog (he also posts regular literary reviews and creative writing on his Tumblr site), reviewing various styles of DIY artists’ music in an, undoubtedly wordy, but erudite and engaging way. He has an obvious love of his subject, but also looks below the surface of the music, considering the personal, cultural and contextual significance. He avoids cliche and, more importantly, comparisons, in his reviews (something many reviewers/bloggers are guilty of…me included, of course. But really, comparing the music of X to the music of Y is just lazy!). I thoroughly recommend his writings on new releases. Anyway, he wrote two rather favourable reviews for ‘The Hobbyist’ album and for Cwtch, HERE and HERE.

I would also like to remind you that I’ve got two live sessions coming up in Feb and March 2012 on Dandelion Radio. They’re already recorded and they include some new material and narrative soundscapes. I’m going to put them up for download on Soundcloud from April.

Cwtch have been at it again…

Marie (Craven) and myself have been working on a new short collection of tracks and, I’m happy to say, it’s now available for download at Cwtch Central for free/pay-what-you-want.

It’s a warm combination of abstract lyrics, impeccably sung vocals, analogue atmospheres and stark beats. Marie thinks it sounds a bit like Boards Of Canada; I can see the comparison, but I think it sounds like Cwtch!

Anyway….please feel free to download, enjoy, share and pass it on.

Peace out brothers and sisters…..

“Olive Walls” – New Cwtch Release

Here’s a new song released today by Marie and me.
Click on the links to download. Thanks.