TimHeld - Alb(L)um (kickstarter comment 1)

Surprisingly my post about kickstarter late november has got the highest recent hit rate - anyway I am going to update 3 projects.

First, Tim Held was looking for $200 to help promote his album - and he achieved it. So iun addition to some stickers and other stuff, it now has offical release and is available through iTunes & probably elsewhere, such as soundcloud and bandcamp.

The thing that really attracetd me to the album is the cover - it is fantastic. The album title is annoying - I can't parse it at all - just one of those tricksy playful impossible to pronounce names (Update - have modified the post title to reflect the capital L in alb(L)um, was lower case)

But the music is great. He has crafted each track from sound samples with some voice pieces in there. There are some crazy beats, some intense sounds, some melody but primarily finely crafted tracks.

Trying to triangulate the music, acts that come to mind - in closest proximity are
Severed heads - not the very earliest cliffird stuff but a bit later, emphasis on the sounds integrating with spoken samples, interested in beats but not driven by them. Same sense of humour.
Snog - mainly the beaty sample stuff.
Eno/Byrne - a touch of the Bush of Ghosts in here, just a whiff.
A few of the tracks have thumping bass lines, others are more discreet, but none are very long - and in fact probably too short!

This is a really good album and highly recommended.

In terms of kickstarter it worked I think because of the striking image - something must draw you in to read more - and the modest target.

(just to note - my only connection to this project is as a backer)

Kissing The Pink

I am not sure when I first heard Kissing The Pink. I have a vague memory of them being on a TV show or perhaps JJJ. But I do remember buying their first album in one of the Impact sales. 

I doubt it was just the price and the intriguing cover that led me to buy Naked - I am sure I knew one or two of the songs. Released in 1983 it was part of the New Wave. What makes the album memorable is the eclectic mix of instruments and styles - sax, keys, strings. A lead singer who intones with a lovely rounded sound rather than sings, a beautiful female voice. It opens with The last film an anthem that returns in hymn form. Mr Blunt is rousing, Love lasts for ever should have been a hit single. The big man restless (so relentless), elegiac Watching their eye - and more. A complex and varied album, apparently they wanted Eno to produce it which is intriguing. I played it a lot & can sing many of the songs, but...

They weren't high in my consciousness - I didn't note the names of the members or who played what. They released 3 more albums & though I recognise the third one didn't buy any. They fell into that grouping of music you like but don't get immersed into collecting. 

And then, when the internet was still young, I found (no idea how or why, probably random search on obscure groups I was interested in) Jeff Grote's Kissing The Pink site (http://www.jeffgrote.com/ktp/ktp.html) - definitely the last word on the group (their Wikipedia entry is brief). I minimally added to it - if you go to lyrics, the Naked ones are a scan of the Australian inner sleeve which uniquely included them all. 

In addition to the information Jeff has a myriad of sound files - all four albums, remix albums, 2 live BBC sessions, outtakes alternatives and demos. You email Jeff for access to this - I am not sure how careful he is (perhaps more so as the music is now available as purchaseable downloads - the first 3 albums are on iTunes), but. Anyway, I now have nearly 150 tracks by them. 

The second album, What Noise, develops the sound and style of the first - more mature, political (Greenham, for those who remember for example), mixed moods. The other side of heaven could have been a single, but as with the first album, the overall package it what impresses as the songs weave their varied courses, which may be the problem. 

With Certain Things Are Likely they became KTP and perhaps closer to a dance mainstream. Another great album but it didn't break through. 

The swan song Sugarland develops the sound, retains a little quirkiness and again didn't find success. I imagine the third and fourth albums lost the fans of the first (true Cliffords, to mix bands) and didn't spark with new listeners. 

So here we are, 30 years on from the first album - why this post? Well it's my blog so.... Perhaps it's nostalgia, but groups from this period (like Blancmange) often get a play when I need something jolly - it is just really good music. Plus it shows the change in the music industry. They got support, backing, distribution from a label but also pressure to create a hit sound. These more independent days mean you can go your own way more easily, make music more easily, but find it harder to get heard and a decent audience. I don't know how much Dave Stafford makes from sales (now mainly bandcamp I think) but he hasn't quit his day job. And kickstarter is not easy for many (a post on that later). Plus you have old farts like me spending time with decades old music (but hey I do listen to some now stuff). 

And don't get me started (too late) on the focus on tracks: Naked is an ALBUM a sum of its parts. Yes some tracks are more immediately accessible but the variety and selection is what counts. 

Anyway, a group whose sound has lasted. Highly recommended. 

TIMR 24: John Foxx and The Maths: Rhapsody (UPDATED)

John Foxx - one of the more un-centred parts of my music history - important but more tangential or something. Perhaps, to explain....

I missed Ultravox! - I am sure that Hiroshima Mon Amour was on Countdown and the link with Eno was there, but their time and mine did not fit (recently have gone to those early albums and enjoy them).

After the split obviously Vienna and the new romantics were about and more prominent and while Underpass was a small hit for Foxx, the album didn't reach me. Then Impact Records in canberra sand its siren song to me and I picked up some 12" single in sales and eventually got the four Foxx albums - Metamatic, The Garden, The Golden Section and In Mysterious Ways. My favourites were 4, 2 , 1, 3 by the way.

Then he went quiet.

On a trip to England in 2005 in a small record shop I found the double album of the first two Cathedral Oceans albums - beautiful ambient emerging from The Garden. There was also a live album there - I think it was the Omnidelic - but I didn't pick it up - another missed opportunity.

Anyway, a few years later something nudged me & I looked into him on the web and found the resurgence with Louis Gordon in the late 90s/early00s. This developed his older material and also included some wonderful new albums.

His career has continued since - there have been more ambient albums; ambient collaborations with Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie; songs with Belbury Circle and Jori Hulkkonen this year; some great resissues and compilations; 

And most recently teaming up with Benge to form The Math - Rhapsody is their most recent release. There shared love of analogue synths provides great warm sounds to go with Foxx's still subtle and always striking voice, often half spoken.

Throughout this long career Foxx has revisited past material and released it in live and studio albums: Rhapsody is another in that line. It takes ten songs from Ultravox! onwards and re-records them, live in studio before going out on the road with them. These aren't radical reworkings but rather presenting the music with the current lineup, modified slightly and subtly tweaked.

As I say, Foxx (perhaps because he dropped out after 4 great albums) was never central in my music world, but those albums got a lot of play and still do, and the newer ones are also high in my mind when I want some joyous electro or thoughtful ambient. It is great he is back.

Caveat - there is one album of his I don't like: a collaboration with Theo Travis (flute, sax) and to me it is too close to New Age: I have also avoided Travis's collaborations with Fripp.

A great discography is at
http://www.quietcity.co.uk/discography.html

And Foxx's own page is pretty great
http://blog.thequietman.co.uk/

UPDATE: Foxx's album A New Kind Of Man which is Metamatic, the first solo album, plus other tracks from the same period performed live in 2007 is now available from townsend records for pound1.99 - great buy, great bargain

2013 - my year of Dave Stafford

As I look back on 2013 the year is overwhelmed by Dave Stafford. 

To recap, I first got in contact with him early in the year to discuss Scape, the Brian Eno music creating app. After a few exchanges of email and blog-comments I thought I should listen to some of his music. And download and listen I did. At this stage I have the following in my library

1.08 GB of Dave Stafford non-eternal albums
2 Bindlestiff albums
A Scorched By The Sun album
2 Pure Ambient samplers compilations
1.03 GB (22:35) of Drone Forest

And then the Eternal albums - growing collections of tracks created by Dave using different Apps
Fairlight Pro - only 6 tracks, just under half an hour - there are lots more but this format didn't grab me (Similarly I have none from the Scape collection as I have the App)
Nanostudio - 4 tracks, 36 minutes - I really like this set and am awaiting more. Complex.
Mixtikl - 61 tracks at over 22 hours. (Plus another 1:20 of outtakes). When put down like that it is a big thing both in size, time and (almost) money (at 50p a track it adds up, but when taken by time quite cheap). Created with an aleatoric app these pieces vary in length, mood, ambience, beat etc. There are some elements that recur, but each piece is different (unless a remix/reconceptualisation) and equally attractive. I find that I put it on random selection most nights and also quite happily jump out of a track before the end without guilt as I know the tracks aren't leading to a climax or a resolution but seem more like visitations from a music that is playing eternally somewhere.

And now we have a new album
classical - only one track so far, but a tweet this morning promised another on the way. The one so far is a Concerto for guitar and oboe. This is some of Dave's most composed music. It has a stately baroque mood (I was reminded of Walter/Wendy Carlos' Switched on Bach [She was Walter when I bought mine, so is still that in my mind] partly because of the tones but also the structure). Amazingly it was all created on the guitar (roland guitar synthesiser), but that is not a factor in what makes it so good: it is just a great piece of music.

All of this music (except Drone Forest) is on his Bandcamp page so you can try before you buy (worth doing - his styles vary from album to album to format - check the blog for various reviews along the way)

http://davestafford.bandcamp.com/

Other highlight

Bowie's - The Next Day: played very regularly
Fripp soundscapes - have continued to expand the collection
Podcasts - I have probably reduced music listening due to increased podcast consumption - and very few are music related!
Just bought Archive 828585 from Cabaret Voltaire from BigPond ($15 for the 3 disks) - a nice addition to that period of the Cabs.

Xmas update 1: Kickstarter

Sorry for being away, so some shortish updates.

I have become quite the kickstarter fan - as well as the record label relaunch, also the 99PI podcast, The Magazine-The Book and a massive one called Wipebook (4000 requested 424,314 pledged), Tim Held's album got up, so I have a copy of that which I will review in the new year.

Have just supported another album - Sayonara Kyoto's Midwinter parts 1-9. It's a bit old school ambient - Tangerine Dream, Enigma and such - but the excerpts sound interesting and for only pounds5 you get a digital copy (as long as it's funded). The link is
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/midwinter/sayonara-kyoto-midwinter-parts-1-9-album-release
if anyone is interested.

And also Duende - Bethesda requiem, which is based around kennedy's assasination, and again, a low entry price for a digital download.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1810772898/duende-bethesda-requiem-cd


There are other interesting reading/sounding albums but one barrier IS the price - a complex piece about Eric Dollard by Adam Bull has a base pledge of pounds15 for a digital download - which means about $30 Australian for a relatively unknown quantity. It is still in my starred list and I will consider it as we go along.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1161401705/the-future-past-of-electricity-the-life-of-eric-do?ref=live


The other barrier though is how much is required. Tim's album and the Duende one were both looking for about 200 for marketting, which seems achievable for a relatively unknown, while Kyoto and Bull both are looking for a few thousand pounds - which might be hard going - it will be interesting to see how they pan out

Kickstarters - support Tim Held (and more)

Kickstarter synchronicity - Maybe it's the time or maybe the podcasts I am listening to, but Kickstarter is coming up a lot.

It sort of started when I saw that Instapaper (one of my most used apps) creator Marco Arment was creating a podcast app. While his is still in the works I got into Pocketcast (excellent - see my review) and various techish podcasts. The Accidental Tech Podcast (here) that he's on and Glenn Fleishman's The New Disruptors (here), which is about new ways of developing/funding. Kickstarter gets a lot of mentions.

Contact with them took me back to The Magazine (which Marco started a year ago). At that stage the articles didn't grab me, but when you download the app now you get the full back issues - and it impressed me enough to take out an annual subscription (it's a website and an app - here).

I had supported one Kickstarter last year - an iPhone case & stand system from Studio Proper which went very well. Then, following my post on roden on dragon's Eye I subscribed to that, admittedly just for Steve's disk, partly cause they had raised the funds. 

But they say most backers are multiple backers & I've gotten into it.

Through The New Disruptors I heard about 99% Invisible - an architectural, design podcast. Which is excellent. They had done a Kickstarter for the current season & had another for the next - initially to go weekly.  So why support something that is free? Partly it's to keep it going - even free things have to get funded somehow. And with Kickstarter there are the various rewards - actual things for providing the funds. Anyway, it has been very very successful & met the goal and more. I'd recommend the podcast.(here).

The Magazine currently has one, to create a best of anthology of their first year, both book and actual. Now I don't want the book - I have the back issues - but I could give it as a gift. But one option also gives a discount on a subscription (in fact this can be added to any pledge). So I am thinking hard about it - it would mean a 2 year commitment to the magazine, but also showing support.(here)

I've become a bit of a Kickstart junkie, regularly looking through on my iPhone app. And have a few starred to think about.

One I have backed is an album by Tim Held (called Alb(L)um). What attracted me? Well, it was in the electronic category, has a goofy image which pricked my interest (band photos are a tricky way to promote something unknown). I played the video & thought the music interesting, as is the description of the project. Next, the aim is modest - only $200. 

Then the cost/reward structure is excellent. For next to nothing you get the album, for a bit more you also get existing music (available to listen to on bandcamp) and then advancing ones with some physical product. The electronic downloads are good as it cuts the postage cost which has been a tipping point for me on some. 

So I backed it: $5 for the album and 2 eps, and while there is still some time to go, Tim emailed me codes for the 2 eps. This is very generous/trusting as unless the project reaches its target he won't get any money. I think the reasoning is that he (rightly) feels we'll buy the album if it gets up on bandcamp if the Kickstarter fails (the kickstarter is for promotion costs)

The two eps support the impression I got of the brief listens on the video and bandcamp - satisfying electronic music, some beats, reminisent of Bill Nelson's Orchestra Arcana, but an individual voice. 

So why back this or any other project? The reasons I see are

• Early ordering discounts
• Getting something you want
• Financially supporting something you think worth doing
• Giving that moral support to keep artists going
• A connection you feel through patronage