Synoiz Music Blog

Posted 22nd September 2009

Just a quick update today. It was a crazy day, one of those everything goes wrong type days. People being all grumbly around me, dodgy weather, missed my bus, lost ticket so had to pay again etc. When I got home this evening I was in a right strop with the world, was about to press the ignition on my doom lazer (which I obviously have so be warned).

Then I did something I never, ever do. I just said f*ck it. Stepped away from the computer and the artwork that needs doing, the website that needs building, and went to run a bath. Then I spent like 3 hours in there, just chilling. Watching the Studio Ghibli film "Whisper of the Heart" on my laptop across the room. Kinda put things in perspective and calmed me down a lot.

Essentially the moral of the film is that the work we do is always "in progress" and that we should never attempt to do things perfectly first time. Made me realise that yeah, while I'm still gonna push my debut album all I can, it'll probably not be till like the fourth or fifth album I release that someone goes "hey this is sounding pretty good, come help out with this soundtrack" or something. I've always been around music and yet I've never made it myself until I started the Synoiz project. Just gets a bit scary when a lot of the people I look up to or am surrounded by are like classically trained pianists who have been writing songs since they could walk etc.
Every track I create I can feel it coming together more.

Plus I got a wonderful email reply from Rob from Temposhark, really boosted my mood even more. I'll be down in London this weekend to see them live, and then I'm going down next weekend as well to be an extra in their next music video too. Good times.

Anyway the LIST! As you can see, not much ticked off so far, but the stuff I've bracketed (is that a word) are things that progress is being made on. I sent the b-side for "Getting Safer" to my friend Lori Cunningham and she pointed out that it was way too dissonant lol. So working on that a bit more before sending it off to Ghostsmut for mastering.

The big news is that the album CD artwork is nearly done, the limited-run physical copy of "Ambients" should look -awesome-. Here's a sneaky look at my paper-clipped-together-printed-on-a-bubblejet copy:

Thanks for reading! See you soon.

Posted 30th April 2009

Hello everyone,

I'm not very well today, no idea if it's the swine flu or not but got headache and general nasty symptoms, will go to GP if it keeps up but until then am resting it up... ish.

Just three little morsels of news for you today. Firstly, you can now watch my slightly electro-sun VBlog in the park on YouTube (or by using the player below!) in it I discuss things like progress on "Soundtract", what's happening with "Ambients" and just generally ramble like a fool:

Dance EP : "Tanz! Tanz! Tanz!"
Finally I've got a name (albeit a silly one) for the EP of "dance" tracks that I've got lying around my hard drive. I'm just sticking them altogether on this release because they're kinda nice and I can't see them ever fitting on anything else! Not even as b-sides! Currently the tracklisting is:

• They Both Want It
• In Stitches
• Hilditched
• Dissonant
• Not A Zombie
• Uppers and Downers
• Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers
• Mr Leonard

If you've heard snippets of these songs before then you'll know what to expect! It's too early to say but I'm thinking it will be free as the songs are heavily sample-based and I can't be bothered to get clearance! You can hear one of the tracks "Uppers and Downers" on YouTube or by watching on the player below:

"Ambients" Mastering

It's nearly here! Next Tuesday I will be going up to Edinburgh to master the "Ambients" album with my brother and then it'll be ready to release onto iTunes and in CD format. I'll no doubt tell you more as things progress but I'm both nervous and excited right now!

Oh yeah, hello to all my new MySpace friends, you're all very cool even if some of your profiles are a bit nuts!
See you all soon!!