Well now, this is pretty neat. BMW have used the title track from my album Distant Activity in a video for the i8 Concept Spyder. Looks like it’s been getting quite a few hits as well… whether the viewers are aware or not, it’s great to be reaching more ears!
On an unrelated note, my ambient album (which I haven’t been talking about for a while) may have found a home. Watch this space.
I’ve been talking a lot about a heavy production album that I’ve been working on since late last year. I finished working on the musical aspect of the album last last month and, handily, since then it has found a home thanks to the kind folks at Liftmusic. What this means is that it will be fulfilling its original purpose and should be available to music supervisors and producers for use in TV, film and advertising. Which is great!
However, since I started talking about it (and started posting snippets on-line) a few people had expressed an interest in listening to it. Alas, due to the nature of the release it will not be seeing a public release.
Also, I’ve just completed another remix for Solarswarm which I’ve just submitted and I’ve been getting some incredible feedback so far. I’ll be sharing more news once everything’s finalised but I’m really excited about this one as I genuinely think this is some of my best remix work to date. Stay tuned!
So, last month I set myself a goal of completing 20 tracks for my heavy production album, and managed to surprise myself by getting it all done to a standard that I’m incredibly happy with. It’s currently in search of a home, but I’ve had some great feedback so far so hopefully it’ll be leaving the homestead soon enough and finding it’s own path. Aww.
On a totally related note, I finally got around to updating my production music portfolio on this very site. For those who had previously looked at the production music section, you are probably aware that it was a bit of a disappointment – a little bit of spiel and a couple of logos. It’s looking far more impressive these days and I think you’ll like what you see (and hear!). I’ve also uploaded a selection of production music to Soundcloud which you can check out at your leisure – in fact, here’s a handy music player if you fancy doing just that.
It’s a pretty eclectic selection of genres, ranging from some really chilled downtempo music right through to some incredibly raucous, ballsy rock. I’d love to know what you think of it if you get a chance!
Hello! If you’ve visited this site recently then you might have noticed that I’ve had a bit of a re-shuffle – I like to keep things mysterious and hidden like that.
Actually, the reasoning behind moving everything about is a bit more logical than that, but just to let you know where everything’s living these days and what’s changed…
As I’ve stated, the reason for a lot of these changes is to prevent future confusion. I can’t be dealing with using a different musician name for each song I release (hence why I tend to just release everything under my real name), and this is my attempt to keep everything vaguely organised without having to resort to using fifty different musician names for different types of music.
Feel free to say hello over at Soundcloud as well!
Quite a while back I contributed vocals to a track by Refracture (whose music I’m a big fan of – his blend of melodic breaks and sheer energy is right up my street) called Redemption which, as it happens, was released on Beatport a couple of days ago. Since then it’s been featured at #1 on Beatport’s “10 Must Hear Breaks Tracks” for the week of its release which was both a bit of a surprise and, needless to say, quite nice! You can check out the song on Beatport by following this handy link. It was great to work with Refracture and I’m really pleased that it’s going down so well.
On a somewhat different topic, you may (or may not) recall that I mentioned that I was working on an album of selected ambient works a month or so ago. Well, the album itself has been completed and I’m currently in the process of trying to find a home for it. Given my total lack of skill regarding the fine art of blatant self promotion, this might be tricky. The album itself is currently going by the title of “And All Is As It Should Be” and features a mixture of reworked and original songs. Rest assured that, one way or another, it will be seeing a release in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future. Just to clarify though: this release has absolutely nothing to do with album #3 (to be released through Distinctive) and came about simply because it was something I really wanted to do. I’m still very much plugging away at album 3 and I’m really liking how it’s turning out.
While on the subject of other musical projects, I’m currently working on a selection of tracks which are considerably heavier than my usual output for the purposes of licensing. So far I’ve got a decent selection of tracks going and it’s a pretty hefty contrast considering the decidedly mellow nature of the ambient album I was working on.
So, yes, I’ve got a fair few bits and pieces going on at the moment. No rest for the wicked!
Apologies for the relatively slow update – I figured now would be a good time as any to answer the question of whether or not album #3 is on the cards. So…
The good news is that there will definitely be an album #3. Lightfields came out not too long ago, and I’m hoping to share some good news regarding both Distant Activity and Lightfields with you in the not-too-distant future. Right now I’m still figuring out what sort of direction I want the next album to go in, so I guess you could say I’m still in the planning stages. That’s not to say I’m not working on new material at the moment, but it does mean that it’s incredibly early days yet. I’d love to give you more information right now, but – to be honest – I don’t know which direction it’s going to go in yet.
Right now I’m splitting the vast majority of my time between my own artistic output, publishing/licensing and sound design. All I can say is that a bit of a gap between updates isn’t necessarily a bad thing… it normally means I’m busy working on something.
In the meantime, I think you should check this out. Anyone familiar with Tom (pictured right alongside yours truly)’s musical output should already know that his work is utterly fantastic, and this Nintendo DS-based project is no exception.
So, it turns out that one of my songs is currently being used by GMC in an advert for a truck… which is actually kind of neat.
On top of that, the kind folks over at Higher Plain Music have decided to run an interview with me, where you can find out a little bit about the process of writing Lightfields and some of the themes behind it, as well as a more detailed look at how I got started in writing music. You can check out the interview here if you’re interested. I’ve also had some very exciting news on top of the aforementioned advert placement which I look forward with sharing with you all soon. Keep your eyes peeled!