Composer & Guitarist
I had the pleasure of an invite onto my friend Tom Kwei's Metallica podcast recently, where we discussed Kirk Hammett's solo EP 'Portals', the main single 'High Plains Drifter' and some musings on instrumental music in general. Have a listen below or wherever you get your podcasts. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7rSekDVDq7J1mGDb63dadK?si=9032e73f0dc44d6c
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 …
In the past few months I've had a handful of people contact me asking where they can download the 'Pure Psaltery' sample library I released back in 2016. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or there's a genuine dearth of psaltery samples out there, but I realised that the link on my Bandcamp no …
Continue reading "‘Pure Psaltery’ library now available on the site"
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"
I had the pleasure of joining erudite podcaster and good friend of mine Tom Kwei on the most recent episode of Alphabetallica - an alphabetical journey through the entire catalogue of metal monsters Metallica. I love podcasts and analysing music, and we had great fun together discussing the track 'Mistress Dread' from the 2011 album …
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’"
Welcome! The new site is now live, with a general emphasis on simplification compared to the old one and a new site-wide player that has some examples of my previous work. Please contact me if something seems broken! I have been somewhat away from doing soundtracks this year as my time has been mostly spent …
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 …
Alex Cottrell 