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 sentiment – and is available to stream/download via Bandcamp.
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 Peters for the mastering and Dan O’Gorman for the art design.
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 never I suppose! So what have I been doing since the start of 2018? Read on…
As covered in my last post, I’ve been spending a lot of time building back up a personal band project since Glossom came to end almost exactly a year ago today. This new band is a trio called Neverbody and I’ve been pouring a lot of time into writing, recording, rehearsing and more to get the material to a satisfactory stage. The current standing of the project is that the completed mixes of our debut EP are about to be mastered and then we’ll be launching it, along with social media et al, in the next week or so. Expect melodic instrumental guitar music with all the intended composition grandiloquence of modern prog, but with tasteful runtimes and none of that endless soloing and ‘widdlying’ in high registers. But I leave that to your impression when the time comes…
I have also continued my collaboration with dark ambient/trip hop collective Venusian, who most recently released a track and video for ‘Perihelion’. Mixing and mastering by yours truly and great collage video work from keys player John Pearson, check that out below!
I had another chat with prolific podcaster Tom Kwei on his Metallica analysis show Alphabetallica, together we discussed Ennio Morricone and his classic ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’ from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The piece has been used an intro track for Metallica since the 80s and I had a great time talking over the great composer himself and the unique connections between the classical and metal genres.
Oh, and in case you missed it at the end of last year – check out this great cover of my theme for the Alphabetallica podcast by Youtube musician Kaosware!
I also did a score for a short Pixar-esque animation by Canetoonist, but I haven’t seen the final product yet. Once I have I’ll be sure to post it here! The teaser is on Youtube.
Finally, French singer songwriter Christophe Serra popped over to my studio in Liverpool to do some recordings and we eventually ended up with his newest EP ‘The Simple Things’, a collection of Christophe’s latest batch of charming and often provocative pop tunes. Good (but not clean) fun!
That about wraps it up for now, see you again soon.
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 holiday. So here, in what WordPress tells me is my 50th blog post, is a quick rundown of what I’ve been doing and what’s coming next…
Venusian
I got involved with this ambient/trip-hop group quite a few months back and, after some writing, recording and gigging, we’re making a push to be more enterprising about the project. On my part that means treating it as a more direct output for some dark experimentation and improvisation, such is the band’s overall intention. When I first started playing bass with John and Yash (Venusian’s founders and sole members for several years) I think I was being too ordinary with it, treating the instrument with hesitation whilst limiting myself to being a side-member of the band as I worked the final stages of Glossom at the time. Now I’m breaking out the violin bow and effects to help make Venusian be the success it’s capable of, and we’re currently working on the next album. At the time of writing our next gig is on the 11th August at Next To Nowhere social centre in Liverpool. If that sounds like your cup of tea then have a read of the new Venusian page on my Portfolio and follow us on Facebook.
Venusian promo shoot – L to R: John Sharma Pearson (Keys, Beats), Alex Cottrell (Bass), Adam Roberts (Saxophone)
Neverbody
In my post-Glossom world I quickly found an instrumental band-shaped hole that needed filling and obsessing over. The result is Neverbody, a new trio I formed with ex-Glossom drummer Gareth Dawson and musician + good friend Andrew Bailey who takes up the bass. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it right now as we’re in the process of writing enough material to make a live set (4 tunes down so far), but it has been taking up a fair bit of time and, like Glossom, it is proving an effective outlet for stretching my capabilities (and fingers) as a writer and performer on the guitar. So far it is sounding less jazz and more prog. More on this when I have it…
Sneak peek of Neverbody at work in the practise room
The ambient project
Over the years I’ve put together a fair number of electronic and orchestral soundscapes that have never got any closure. Some were sketches from soundtracks I was working on at the time, other were just bits of fun that never got completed. I sort of mentioned this in a blog post rounding up 2016, but it still floated around in a ‘done-when-it’s-done’ holding pattern because I just didn’t want to slap a bunch of sounds together and call it an album. And it is still floating around like that really, but I have been working on making it a more consistent, cohesive collection of tracks and intend to set up a whole new alias to release the kind of material that doesn’t have any other home in my output. I want to go into more detail in a separate post, but the reason I’m doing it is because lots of small, curious moments in everyday life cause me to bank ideas and short recordings that sometimes are later expanded into full on explorations. I’m certain this is true of many artists in many mediums, but for me that has so far manifested itself in a minimalist/ambient kind of way, and it dawned on me as a terrible waste for these ephemeral dittys never to see the light of day, even if the end product exists only for personal satisfaction. To echo the above, more on this when I have it…
Film score, the website, and more
I also started working with a local director to put together a score for their short film. We had a lengthy and spiriting conversation in our first meeting about support (or a perceived lack thereof) for funding and building a community around grassroots narrative film in and around Liverpool. A surprising thing I would have thought, considering that it’s apparently the most-filmed city in the UK outside of London. We’re in the early stages at the moment but I’m hoping to share more about the film and its maker soon.
The website has undergone a bit of pruning and updating, mainly adding new projects to the portfolio and adding a bit more emphasis to my work as a guitar player. I’ve also updated a lot of images so that they load faster. Meanwhile, there are some rumblings about The Little Mermaid – the storytelling performance with the Liverpool Players – getting a show overseas, but again I can’t say much more until things are confirmed.
Right, I’m done being a tease. Bye for now!
I’ve been doing a fair bit of writing recently, but not much in the way of uploading. Unless it’s for a commission or particular project, I tend to create a few pieces – either on the guitar, just on the computer, or mixing live and virtual instruments – and let them stew for some time to see if I think they’re worth sharing a bit further down the line. Whilst it can be satisfying (or horrifying) to return to something later on, sounding different to fresh ears, it has the effect of making my output seem wanting. In an attempt to break the habit, I recorded myself playing this solo guitar piece I wrote today.
With the recent sad loss of guitar magician Allan Holdsworth, I have been listening to a lot of his work (as well as his solo/trio catalogue I heartily recommend his releases with Soft Machine and U.K.) and trying out some of the more testing chord voicings that he so famously favoured and, listening back to this piece, it’s clearly worked its way into my writing here. As a nod to the music often left unfinished or unheard, I give you ‘Loose Ends’.
My good friend and diligent podcaster Tom Kwei has started a new show to analyse every track by the legendary Metallica in alphabetical order and he kindly invited me onto the 2nd episode where we discuss ‘Ain’t My Bitch’ from their direction shifting album ‘Load’. I have done a bit of podcasting before and despite being music-related, this was still something fresh for me as I haven’t listened to the band much in recent years. I think it’s a great show and promises to get even better as it goes along – have a listen to us discussing this curious shift in tone and sound from one of the world’s greatest metal bands.
Following on from the successful performances in Liverpool and London for the Being Human Festival 2016, the Liverpool Players have been invited to return to the capital and show their live storytelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic once again. This time it will be courtesy of the esteemed and historic British Academy at their Literature Week 2017, an event that explores the evolution of literature across time, culture, language and form. Our performance will be on the 20th May at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace.
The performance will take place at the British Academy’s headquarters at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London.
Late last year we released an audiobook version of our Little Mermaid adaptation and then the standalone soundtrack followed – now available on Bandcamp. It is a retelling that sticks close to the original story and Madelaine Smart’s enchanting performance is bound to be a hit with young children and anyone with a taste for the fantastical. My accompanying orchestral score ebbs and flows throughout the journey, hoping to whisk the audience away to our fictional realm.
Once again this will be a free event, so if you’re in London and looking for a fun and insightful journey into the worlds of classic literature for you and/or some little ones, then hurry and book your tickets for the 20th May 2017!
BOOK YOUR FREE TICKETS ON THE EVENT PAGE
Oh and take a gander at The Liverpool Players new website whilst you’re at it!
The Little Mermaid at The Walker Gallery, Liverpool, for Being Human 2016.
