On this day 4 years ago I released my first full-length album.

I was without a reliable internet connection, my laptop was on the fritz and I was about to start my final year at university. I’m not going to lie – as far as release schedules go, I’ve had better.

It was a completely new and alien experience to me… at the time, I had been releasing music freely on-line for a good 5 or 6 years (not including my late-90s/early-00s tracker output which was, to be kind to it, pretty horrible), and I had never released such a large collection of music that was supposed to flow together as one cohesive whole. Then there’s the whole “releasing an album independently” angle which, more or less, came about after an exasperating couple of months in which I sent the album out to a load of indie labels and heard absolutely nothing back. Not a peep. Well, except for Magnatune.

Thankfully, Magnatune were on board right from the start and, with Magnatune on board and some serious consideration, I knew that it was probably the right time to risk a completely independent release. Unfortunately, things took a bit longer to get together than I’d expected and by the time I actually got around to releasing the album, I was about to start my final year at university. Could have been worse – if I’d tried releasing it a month later then I really would have really been screwed!

Distant Activity was a learning experience like no other, and – while the actual writing and production of the album wasn’t always exactly… pleasant – I have fond memories of finishing this album and the immense sense of pride that came with releasing something so personal into the wild. I never expected for a minute that so many people would connect with it in such a profound way, and I couldn’t be happier with how everything turned out.

Happy Birthday, Distant Activity… you little scamp :]

(also, if I had any sense, I would have released Background Activity today instead of earlier in the year on my birthday. Whoops)