Composer / Producer / Guitarist
In what has become a tradition on this site - it's been a while since my last post. But plenty has been happening in the brand new studio this year... with the exception of a 5 month-or-so gap where I was renovating a house. The main thing is that an album I was producing last …
Congratulations to Athos - brothers Anthony and Demetri Kastellani - on the release of their debut album 'To Know Where It's Going': a lush and transportive exploration of the brothers' Cypriot background - part ambient, part folk. I played a small part on a couple of tracks helping out with woodwind and brass arrangements and …
Honestly, this wasn't a new year's resolution! Whilst working on my yearly update of the website over the past day or two, I impulsively decided to start writing on my blog again - not because I think anyone is particularly hankering to see it return, but because in a strange, journaling kind of way it …
Continue reading "Return of the Blog and a 2022 retrospective"
Excellent UK music software company Spitfire Audio recently hosted a competition for composers to score a short NASA film using only the free version of their LABS Choir (a series of free virtual instruments I reviewed not too long ago - spoiler: they're really good). I only discovered the competition a couple of days before …
Continue reading "I won the LABS X Eric Whitacre competition!"
Have a listen to my latest track 'Omni', created using Spitfire's new LABS range of virtual instruments. I think it's both inspiring and very generous of Spitfire to release these high quality tools for free and I've written an appraisal of the instruments I used in this track below. It can be expensive business this …
Take a look at the website for a new film from Director/Writer Ryan Garry, currently being shot around Merseyside and the Wirral. This indie feature takes inspiration from big budget legends like The Lord of the Rings and the Marvel Cinematic universe, and has set its own production sights just as high with custom made …
Continue reading "Working on upcoming action/fantasy feature ‘Anghenfil’"
I have been playing bass with experimental/trip hop outfit Venusian for over 18 months now and last Friday we released out first album as our current set up (but the fourth under the Venusian name). 'Ancestor' dropped on Friday the 13th April - as seems befitting of an act so steeped in gloom and apocalyptic …
My new band Neverbody has just put our first EP on Bandcamp, it's 3 tracks of instrumental guitar music with leanings towards math rock, classic prog, and post-rock. Have a stream below and please consider downloading supporting us if you like what you hear! Recorded and mixed by yours truly, with much credit to Tom …
Hello again, it has been a while since I posted on the blog, hasn't it? I tend to just get on with things and the thought of posting updates on blogs and social media comes to me after the fact. One of my resolutions for this year was to get better at that...better late than …
I'm currently in the midst of one of those frustrating but exciting passages of time - one in which lots has been happening but it's not yet all ready for presentation - and my knack for taking on more projects than is wise reaches critical mass as summer arrives, and my music students go on …
Alex Cottrell 