We’ve already reached £1,143 and the campaign is 57% funded…
If you are thinking of pledging, please pledge sooner rather than later as it’s always best to get the campaign over the line early. This then gives me more time to plan and prepare for the release so I can get it to you quicker.
Remember, you don’t have to pay for your pledge until the 30th June if the campaign is successful and you can change your pledge at any time.
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This one is to publish my autobiography Counting Clouds In A Clear Blue Empty Sky. There is also an album called ENFILADE and you can hear lots of the songs on the Kickstarter. There is also a video and an opportunity to get a unique Bill Hicks photograph as well as a 92 stadiums photograph.
I’ve released another MuZiK KluB this month, release number 54. It’s a two-CD set and features the album The World Loves Me And The Feeling Is Mutual as well as my second radio show.
Tracklisting is as follows:
1. Run With You 2. Dancing Like A Brick 3. Something New To Say 4. Sweet Shame 5. Hanger 9 6. It’s In You, It’s In Me 7. The World Loves Us 8. Sleep Scene 9. One Forty 10. Going Crazy 11. Bye Bye
For those of you who didn’t pledge or couldn’t at the time or forgot and want a copy of the album, I have put some up for sale HERE
I messed up with the cover though I think. My timing is terrible. I thought of the cover and the concept of the album about 4 years ago before all this Brexit stuff. Now I’m releasing an album with a St. Georges flag on it just as Farage and all this is going on and it feels a bit weird.
Initially, the album was supposed to be a bi-lingual album but I went off that idea as I was making it, it didn’t sound right. Now only one track on the album is sung in German and then only the middle 8 of that track. I was concerned about the connotations of the St. Georges flag right from the start but I wanted to use it exactly because it provokes a feeling. 30 years ago, the St. Georges Flag was mostly a symbol of the far right but over the years, mainly through football I think, it’s changed back into a symbol of positive nationalism. Positive nationalism is when you are being patriotic for the right reasons, like supporting your country at football, in the Olympics or at Eurovision(!). Fascism is the ultimate perversion of nationalism.
This album has nothing to do with making any comments on nationalism. What the listener draws from the cover, the poetry and the music on the album is supposed to create a feeling. The feeling that is created should have just as much to do with the person who is looking at the cover and listening to the album, as the person who created it. That’s the idea. It doesn’t have an answer. It’s not a protest album. It’s not political.
Art is about sharing the way we experience the world, which for many is an extension of the personality. It is the communication of a concept that cannot be faithfully portrayed by words alone. And because words alone are not enough, we must find some other vehicle to carry our intent. But the content that we instill on or in our chosen media, is not in itself the art. Art is to be found in how the concept itself is used and interpreted by the creator, the viewer and also, in this case, the listener. Art should cause an emotional reaction which is completely subjective as to whether it’s a thing of beauty or disgust.
There are some really brutal sounds on this record that come out of chaos, and as they evolve, they take on a kind of beauty. This is particularly evident in the first two openers of each side of the record but most noticeable on the song Set Me Free, which is 9:20 long.
There’s a lot of lyrics in this song and a thundering bass line with a continuous live drum beat underneath it and a tambourine driving it along but there is also an evolving sound throughout the entire background of the song which eventually takes over and becomes the main part of the song. It’s really hypnotic and you begin to focus on it more and more as the song keeps going until you have no idea of where you are in the song or when the song might end.
In the context of the music, the beauty of this noise unfolding is the gauge of the communication between the artist and the listener. The noise becomes beautiful in that it starts to portray the intended emotions within the desired concept of the album. Is it pretty and bright, or dark and sinister? But in the end, with myself as the creator and you as the listener, neither of us should be certain of what is trying to be communicated. This is what this record is about and the flag on the front is part of that. Maybe, with what is going in politically right now, the timing of the album was actually perfect?
Some of the song titles are German and some are in English. It’s confusing. The song titles themselves are references and codes which refer to people, places and other works of art and creators. Some of the songs are quite straightforward and some are a mixture of extreme noise with strange time signatures and some are DAF style bass lines with Velvet Underground drumming and heavy guitars. There’s also poetry and melodic instrumental krautrock. The record has many colours and textures.
I really like the record and the way we made it. Recording at Rockfield gives everything a special sound, dark and heavy. I wanted to tap into the spirit of all the Hawkwind albums that were made there! Thanks to all of you who pledged to make Das Ist England happen and thanks to those of you who came with me to Rockfield to join in and so made it possible for me to record it in that studio.
Here is Side A to a future release: The World Loves Me And The Feeling Is Mutual, the follow up to the orange vinyl, The World Hates Me And The Feeling Is Mutual. (natch)
The album is similar to The World Hates Me as it was recorded in the same way but this time I have spent a lot more time on it. The idea was to record Motorik drum beats and then sync a MiniMoog up with them and write a song over the top. The World Loves Me will be a lot guitar heavier though.
Although I’ve put this up as side A, things like running order and track length and even tracks themselves could change or be added to. You never know!
Side A will be up on the Bandcamp site for a limited time only. I’ll be giving away these tracks and more finished tracks from Side B + various demo’s for the album with my next MuZiK KluB release.
I’ll do a Kickstarter to try and fund the album on vinyl.
I just got a knock on the door: “Fed Ex mate, got 8 large boxes for you.” The vinyl was supposed to come around about today’s date but then was delayed for two weeks. I was told it would arrive on 28th May…
Brilliant. Just listened to it full blast. It sounds nuts! It really is an amazing sounding record. Totally unique, uncompromising and feral. The drumming is sensational and some the sounds are cosmic. A bi-lingual anglo-kraut Kosmische record for 2019. It’s Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft playing NEU! with a full frontal Sonic Youth meltdown.
I’ll get these all ready for shipping this weekend and will post on Monday morning.
