Catch up (part 2)

Also in November and continuing through December I've been working on a short track. "The Lost Harvest". The main parts were created very quickly, it's mainly the children's choir but heavily treated. A few other instruments come in and out. It sounds a little spooky and ends the cycle started with "Ophelia Dreaming", "Hireath", "First Signs of Autumn" and "Spirited away".
In November I was listening to a lot of early Berlin School electronic music and was thinking about what I would sound like using the same equipment. Rather than set out to do a pastiche I took "The lost harvest" and used software emulations of a few bits of equipment used at the time, mainly Mellotron and Arp Odyssey. I kept the reverb to spring or plate reverbs and the delay to emulations of tape delay. Everything was played by hand on the original and there are only a few tracks. I may add some sound effects from an EMS emulation, but then again, might not. Overall this version sounds a lot chunkier than the original..partly because the Mellotron doesn't have the slow attack of the choir sounds I used for the first version.

Catch up (part 1)

In November I completed "Spirited away into a clear blue sky", just waiting for a suitable moment to release it. It's about a feeling akin to agrophobia. Steve Wright had a joke about it, "I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of widths". So for me being on a cliff or high building is not about the ground, it's about the open space in front and above me. I feel like I'll be pulled up into the void. So that's what it's about.

First Signs of Autumn

Just released over on Soundclick http://www.soundclick.com/markgriffiths and on MySpace, First Signs of Autumn, part of the "Lost Harvest" series. Music is based on BelD Media's Childrens choir samples, plus cello plus a few other sound sources. Autumn is a special time of year for me, like New Year for other people I guess, a time the old year ends and a new year commences. A time of nostalgia and hope for the future.

Nostalgia, new music and congrats to Bela D media

Not quite into the swing of this blogging lark yet. Hopefully it will come in time.
I've been caught up in a bit of a nostalgia binge after connecting up some old analogue monosynths. I'm toying withb the idea of buying new hardware. I've decided not to remaster the old material just yet as all this history can get a bit suffacating. I am sort of getting back on track. My ears have attuned to the old hardware synths and then retuned back to include the software, it sounds bizarre but I've found that can really stop me, anything I create just doesn't blend together, it needs a while to adjust. I really didn't know I'd be so sensitive!

"Spirited Away" is now largely complete, it needs to be mixed and mastered but I think all the music is there. Last night I started something new and it seems that it's almost there already. Sort of eerie, very organic and short, it will probably be called "The Lost harvest" which is the working title I've been using for the recent series of celtic/ new age/ ambient type music I've been producing. Like the soon to be released "First Signs of Autumn" it's built upon Bela D Media's excellent childrens choir samples (Congrats to Francis for the great review in Sound on Sound http://www.beladmedia.com/ ).
Ok I can smell the food burning, time to go!

Getting all the ducks in a row....

That's what has been the focus recently. Getting all the ducks in a row. Setting up the new blog, setting it as the new link from the website.

And it's not just in cyberspace. I've been trying to "keep it real" (yeah right) by getting more hardwire linked into the computer. One of my old synths and the old Revox tape machine. The latter means that possibly, just possibly, I can transfer some of my master tapes from my "commercial" releases from the 80s to digital. From there they can be cleaned up (I hope) and possibly reissue on the net. But I have no idea what state they are in. I'm afraid to look. I heard that the master tape from REMs "Automatic for the People" (released Oct 92) has already disintegrated. My tapes go back to 1982. Yikes! Apparently one method is to put the tapes in the oven (yes really) and then you can play them again..once. But with my cooking skills I dread to think. And I don't think the microwave is a great idea either.

Music iself is having to take a back seat. I have one track "First signs of Autumn" ready and I'm working on another "Spirited away into a clear blue sky". Yesterday I started one called "monologues", all done on a Roland SH101 synth, just to get all the cliched sounds and moves out of the way. Doubt if it will see the light of day but it was a fun exercise.

ok, enough already!

It starts here....

This is just a post to break the ice. To be clear, and to remind myself this blog is supposed to be about my music and thoughts around it. If anyone is interested in it, that's great, if not, that's ok too.