Phew! Back to some state of normal.

I thought this blog would be very busy over the time we were putting together our 3-album release, but in fact the whole process has been so demanding of time that nothing has been posted here about the albums. So over the next week or so I'll try and rectify that with a series of posts about the albums, starting with a quick run through of all three before I go into more detail in the next post.

Eponymous Debut

Some artwork problems (of my creation) created a delay in getting this album completed, and there was some to-and-fro between the duplication company and myself to fix it, but once sorted and the CDs arrived I was very pleased with the results. Thanks to Stuart of Gillies Audio for providing a great service and being patient in the face of my errors.

Difficult Second

There was a lot of preparation involved to make the 'Album-in-a-day' work smoothly, but it paid off and despite a couple of glitches (no sound on the webcast and me falling asleep unexpectedly) I think the results speak for themselves. The finished result is certainly rough around the edges, but we came up with some tracks that I'm really quite proud of that could easily sit beside anything on the first album were they subject to more rehearsal and a less rushed recording process. There are elements of everything from progressive rock, folk and blues through to the avant-garde, music hall and even country all tinged with a bit of a punk spirit.

To mirror the collaborative nature of the first album, we put out a call for guests for this album, resulting in an album with three different theremin players. Gordon Charlton of Beat Frequency and Wilco Botermans added a wide variety of theremin parts, from simple melodic accompaniment to wild and weird sound effects, to six of the nine tracks - thanks go to both of them for taking the time out to join us.

Stockholm

All the music on 'Stockholm' is improvised instrumental music, but some of it was recorded as far back as our second rehearsal on fairly basic equipment, so some editing and noise-removal was required to bring those pieces up to a similar sound quality as the more recent recordings. There are a few tracks for which only a few seconds will be audible in the film of Stockholm, but the whole track is included on the CD for the sake of completeness.

Incidentally, the picture above shows the artwork for all three completed albums in almost all its glory. What you don't see in the picture are the insides of the CD booklets - all three have two pages of liner notes about the songs, including a short extract from the Stockholm script in the case of that album.

Last Chance

And finally, the pre-order offer was due to end on the final release day, but with the delay to 'Eponymous Debut' we decided to let it run until we had sent the first batch of discs out. In that time we got a few more orders for all three discs, so I'm going to let the offer run until the end of this month or until the 'Difficult Second' discs run out (which won't not be long as only 50 were made). Once they are gone we'll not be producing any more, so the only way to get the second album after 31st of August will be by download.

Click HERE to order the 3-disc collection before they're gone.

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Tags: Lunacy Board, Eponymous, Debut, Difficult, Second, Stockholm, Quintillis, Music Download

In the midst of an album-a-day

This just about marks the halfway point of the Album-a-Day project, "Difficult Second", and I'm pleased to say we have an album's worth of material. It is perhaps a little rougher around the edges than our usual fare, but such are the constraints of time under these circumstances.

I'm pleased to say that we've already had some submissions from some of our previous collaborators, Beat Frequency and Wilco Botermans, which will be included in the tracks already recorded, and hope to have some more by the end of the 24 hours.

Having been out last night until 4am doing live sound at a wedding, I'm feeling more than a little tired, but now comes the time to sit down and work through the various takes we've had at the new songs and instrumentals, adding the occasional overdub and getting the final article into a shape worthy of the Board. In just over 12 hours you'll be able to download the album for free and hear the full effect of our labours.

Finally, apologies for the lack of sound on the webcast - it was working this morning, but the PC froze and now I can't seem to get the sound back. you're still welcome to drop by and watch or chat!

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Tags: Quintilis, Difficult, Second, Improvisation, Album-a-day, Wilco Botermans, Beat Frequency

The Survivors' Party (Live Theremin Frenzy)

It's been a long time since I've been on stage, and never as a 'solo' act, so it was with some trepidation that I set off on the road to Bushey (near Watford) for the 'Hands Off 2007' Theremin Symposium. Various people have posted reports of the main event, which was a great success, but of most interest in these pages is the little set I did on the Sunday night for the 'survivors' of the whole weekend. This came after a packed weekend of workshops, demonstrations and a truly wonderful concert by a variety of thereminists from around the World, so it could easily have been a total wash-out with everybody drained. I happen to think it all went rather well.

I rehearsed a batch of new Lunacy Board songs, along with a couple of old Deserters numbers - just me playing guitar and singing, using an old Linux PC running the 'Sooper Looper' software to set up sections of repeating chords to play solos (either guitar or theremin) over the top of. At some point prior to the event it occurred to me that it would make life a bit easier for me and a bit more interesting for the audience if I was to have some collaborators up on stage, so contacted a group of performers with the offer of the post of 'Stunt Thereminist' for The Lunacy Board Subcommittee. I received a couple of positive responses, so re-arranged my setlist to fit around their choices of song, and I was ready to go.

Nerves were absent as the performance drew near - probably just because the day had been so busy and I had barely time to think about the evening show. I got the stage more-or-less set up as soon as the main concert had finished, took half an hour to get refreshed, then returned to the stage to finish off. At which point I discovered that I had not brought a video cable for Sooper Looper. It can run quite happily without one, as I control it from a set of effects pedals, but should anything go amiss I would not be able to reset it or see what was wrong. Live and learn. The audience came into the room and chatted as I prepared for the first song.

To warm up my fingers and voice I kicked off with 'Morning Rolls' - a very short song with no instrumentals or frills. With that complete and with only a small fluffed chord change I invited Wilco Botermans to the stage. Previously in the weekend Wilco had demonstrated his theremin effects set-up which he controls using a specially wired glove to control parameters of a group of Moog 'Mooger Foogers', as well as the visually stunning 'Croix Sonore' - a unique instrument with similar properties to a theremin. For the purposes of his guest appearance he was using his TVox Tour theremin (the Russian-built instrument favoured by Lydia Kavina and Barbara Bucholz), and the Mooger Foogers, though without the glove controller.

We started off with 'The Unofficial National Anthem', followed with a very laid-back version of 'Requiem For A Head In A Field In Butler' - using Doug's original bass part which we improvised along to, and finished off with 'One Night In The Back Of A Fire Engine' complete with audience participation (cheesy, but fun). Wilco played a mix of melodic accompaniment and weird special effects which worked well - 'Requiem...' seemed to really benefit from this approach as far as I can recall. The concert was recorded in full, but I've only had a chance to hear a few snippets back.

Wilco left the stage and I played another short song - 'Jim Crow', then Hypnotique came up onto the stage. We played 'The Man In The Boat' followed by Lee Newe's 'The Woman In Red' - both fairly slow songs, to which Hypnotique added some legato cello-like theremin parts. Her solos on 'The Woman In Red' were particularly effective at bringing the sad nature of the song to the fore.

At some point during the previous song, the looper had stopped responding, so this stopped me doing the new multi-part song we've been working on, which needs several looped layers to work, so I called for another stunt thereminist and Terry Bowler came up to play on 'The Winning Smile' (a rare love song I wrote last year, which now also incorporates the music from 'Goodbye Mr. V.') and 'The Ballad of Serenity' (the only cover version I've tried, with lyrics which fit into the Lunacy Board remit). I finished off with one more guest thereminist, Captain Ants of 'The Jaw-Line of Julianne Moore', playing the somewhat rockier 'Fairytale Propaganda'.

It was good to finally get some of these songs out on stage, and great to be able to play them with a group of musicians from a range of backgrounds. I hope to get some video clips posted in the near-future from this.

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