Synoiz Music Blog

Posted 17th November 2012

Nearly time to say goodbye to 2012. It's been a good year but as I get older I feel like the time moves faster, feels like yesterday we were out and about filming the Shock! Horror! video and that was like 2 years now. I've tried to do a release a year while I'm busy with other things but months just seem to fly by worryingly!

If you didn't know my new remix album "Darkling" is out now! It's 15 tracks of awesome remixes of my stuff by friends and fellow artists. Now I must admit I'm not usually fussed about remixes and I've been often disappointed by "remix albums" but for this one it's pretty damn good, nice selection of stuff on there and personally I think some of the remixes actually sound better than my originals (Madeleine Bloom's version of Of Rolling Hills from Ambients, and Ark Elfs "news report" style version of The Enfield Poltergeist from the Andromeda EP. You can download the 15-track Darkling album here for pay-what-you-want or free.

Do Unsigned Artists Put Too Much Work In?

The thing I'd like to write about is something that a fellow artist asked me about the other day. They were feeling very down about their music and the feeling that no-one was listening, how hard it is to get exposure and how upsetting it is to work so hard on something and then no-one really seems interested. All fairness this is something that I've been feeling a lot lately too and it made me realise just how common it must be.

I'm not really meaning anything in a "why aren't I a big rockstar yet?" way, considering the style of music I do and how I compare to so many of the other more talented unsigned artists and musicians I know I'd be shocked by any kind of big attention! It's more whether we unsigned artists put too much work into what we do.

With my Synoiz stuff I'm doing artwork, singles, B-sides, digital booklets, remixes, music videos (you'd be surprised how much work goes into just one of them!!), then for every release I prepare large press lists of potentially interested magazines/newspapers/radio/blogs and contact each of them and send out press packs consisting of press releases, press CDs and other promotional material (such as the postcards designed and printed for the Shock! Horror! and Darkling releases); all of this is essentially just to help get attention and to give people special stuff in addition to the music itself.

The problem is that does any of this need to be done? My latest release Darkling seems to have been ignored by almost everyone and type of press it was sent to, and while the reaction from fans has been great and the release is doing well but I'm sure most of you would have been happy with just the album in MP3 with some quick artwork chucked out over Bandcamp or as a zip file on my website. If this was what I did it probably could have been out months earlier.

Obviously it makes me wonder if maybe my music is just rubbish and only me and some select few truly enjoy it, or if it's so different to what people want at the moment, or maybe I'm just not getting it out to the right magazines or crowds? So it begs the question should artists just focus on the music and throw it out there for whoever wants it and hope that someone finds it? Should artists who are not "discovered" yet stop putting effort into artwork and videos and such and wait until we've hit the big time with some random tracks we've put out? Or should we just make sure we enjoy every aspect of what we're doing and if we don't enjoy it (like press and promotion for me!) we should just not bother with it and hope someone manages to dodge all of the other millions of bands all over the internet and give a listen to one of our tracks and immediately fall in love with it?

It sounds mad doesn't it?

What do you think though, are you an artist trying to get promotion or feeling like you're not sure if anyone is listening? Would you prefer to focus on the music and not have to do the promotion or do you link everything else to your music so that you need all of it together?

Posted 22nd January 2012

Another personal blog here, there's lots going on in the Synoiz world but I felt i'd have a sit down and muse on this topic while it's still in my head after listening to a lot of Etta James and hearing a lot about Rihanna lately.

Are singers like Rihanna and the media good for the perception of women?

Now i'd say it would be daft to call me a feminist, not because I don't believe in feminism but simply because there are lot of people out there who are doing a lot more towards it. Although I grew up in an environment that didn't give me room to conceive that women and men shouldn't be equal. Even now I don't understand why some people could view them as unequal or think women should have less rights/money/freedom than men. I've always known women far more noble and intelligent than I am so it seems daft that anyone could look down on them just cos of gender. Indeed I have weird other views about men being less equal than women in certain areas (as a man it's far socially acceptable to wear whatever you want etc) but that's for another day, either way the culprit is still the same. 

During one of my many Twitter rants about the Barbie doll with a grating voice also known as Rihanna (if you don't know who she is then I envy you), a few interesting points came through. Obviously Rihanna demonstrates the wonderful PR trick of "make them think it's freedom and liberation while still getting them to do what you want". 

For instance Rihanna's fans seem to claim her as a model of female independance and strength even though the label (judging by production staff they're mostly men also) write her songs, tell her the words to sing and tell her what to wear (some of which is covered in this article about how much it cost to write her album for her and promote it for her). So what we have is a "strong independant woman" whose videos and promotional materials are fiercely provocative, sings about being obsessed with sex and does what the man tells her to do. I don't think this could be more perfect for men and demeaning to women unless they wrote her some songs about being good at cooking/cleaning and not wanting to interrupt their video games with idle prattle (I want royalties if this happens btw). 

But what we need to see is that the media is about advertising, it's not a system of "news" or "informing people" it's about letting people know what companies want to sell and making people want to buy it. If we had TV or magazines pointing out just how beautiful women can be without buying or using any makeup, not needing their overpriced mini weightwatchers meals, not needing cosmetic surgery (hell I'm sure even the ice cream industry might suffer from less girls feeling like they need to comfort eat), then the media wouldn't make any money. Hell some of you may remember how stunned I was by that "How to look good naked" program I saw while on holiday earlier in the year that carried the message of "you can look great naked if you just spend lots of money wearing more clothes to be a socially acceptable Adele-brand of fat". 

So what I see is REAL artists and real strong independant women constantly ignored by the limelight and success in favour of puppet "artists" like Rihanna simply because they can't sell the range of products that the Barbie dolls can.

How Etta James ties into this...

Recently famous Blues singer Etta James passed away, admittedly I had totally past her by and didn't know of her work but spent most of Friday listening to her music and kinda feeling like I'd missed out on something great for a long time (this isn't the best song to argue female independance but her voice is amazing). 

However it did make me think. Etta harks back to the old ways of music, before the 70s or the glorious 80s, when people were JUST singers. They didn't need to play an instrument, other people wrote the music and the lyrics (which are where the royalties went) and the singer or "artist" was a doll that just got a little from in between. 

So if I'm complaining that it's such a shock that there are artists like Rihanna/Beyonce etc who just sing and don't tend to get involved with the music side at all (I know I'm ignoring the woeful and equal male side with JLS, The Wanted, One Direction boybands who are just as bad for being puppets) then how can I possibly talk about how great the old time artists like Etta James or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday were?

Simple, all of them are dead now and we never saw their rack properly.

These women had a power, they had a sway over both the industry and men while still giving nothing away and still jumping through the hoops that a male-dominated industry forced them through. Sure they probably weren't involved in writing the songs but they made men feel like they were the weaker ones and that it was a priviledge to be in the company of such women. I know a fair few men who think, while they doubt they'd ever get to meet Rihanna, the most they'd have to stretch to is a drink or two before they struck gold (I'd say Nicki Minaj might be cheaper). 

It's the horrible realisation that "artists" like Rihanna make me actually start thinking of women as dolls or being less than men, seeing her music videos and promo photos I feel like I'd be breaking some kind of social etiquette if I didn't stare at her breasts and slap her on the arse since those are what she seems to advertise herself as. 

But what about Lady Gaga?

On the same topic someone asked me how I could be a fan of Lady Gaga (who wears practically nothing or very revealing outfits quite a bit) and slag off Rihanna for the same thing. The answer here is that Gaga's style seems to have a lot more thought behind it (plus if you believe it or not she probably designed/co-designed/decided to wear it - deciding or designing something skimpy to wear is a whole world apart from saying "yes I'll wear that Mr Man who gives me money") and she has a way of turning sexy into creepy. Like she doesn't just wear panties and tape round her breasts, she wears them with a black eye, blood round her mouth or a dead cat slung over her shoulder, almost using her form to inspire revulsion or defensiveness rather than just product selling sexual attraction and lust. This is the difference between a life modelling class and a porn movie, the context and the understanding put behind the composition.

Conclusion

Rudeboy was a terrible song, Man Down was bought pre-written by the record label for a lot of money, Only Girl In The World is about how a woman needs a man. Oh and I'd prefer to listen to claws on a chalkboard than Rihanna's tired flat attempts at vocals. 

I think I stumbled a bit on the dismount there.

Posted 21st November 2011

Had a sleepless night yesterday, I've been trying to get myself into a more sensible and regimented daily routine lately and my body seems to be rejecting it. Rather than the odd bed at 3am/4am, get up at 7am that I've somehow been managing over the last few months, I've been aiming for bed at 10pm and up at 6am, it's just proving harder than I thought.

I just seem to wake up sometimes, in the peaceful but deathly silence of like 2am and I'm not sure what I should do. Do I close my eyes, push all thoughts out my mind and try to get to sleep for another 30 mins or do I get up, read or work till I feel tired again?

I've always held the belief that whenever I can't sleep that there's a reason, either a worry that needs more thought, an errand that needs to be added to tomorrow's list, or even a lavatory visit or phone that needs plugging in. Lately I can't seem to find out what that "secret concern" is. So I wonder if it's a physical thing and I'm just supposed to be weathering this until my body finally gets used to nights with more than 3 hours sleep at a time.

I suppose I have a fair few worries at the moment, my first ever live performance on Saturday is looming (1st World Problems eh?). While I'm being realistic and know that I've almost got it in hand and either way people should enjoy it, there's still that nagging doubt that Gollum-like studio dwellers like me seem to have with being "up there" and watched by people. There seems to be a few Synoiz fans in the area planning to come along as well as a few of my other friends, it should be a good time once the irrational dread and "everything will go wrong" fear fades away.

Here's hoping we all get a good night's sleep tonight! Syn.

UPDATE: Argh! Turns out I lay awake from 2am to 4am and then my alarm didn't go off so I woke up at 8am. You have to wonder sometimes...

Posted 11th November 2011

Today was weird for me, I pondered for a while whether I should do something special for 11/11/11 but in the end I decided I've got enough to promote at the moment without throwing another free track/release or such out there. Plus considering what day it is today in England would make any "oh look at the date!!!11" celebration seem crude. 

Today was/is Remembrance Day which marks the official end of the first World War. For a lot of people including myself it also ties in with those who fought in World War II also. We marked it today by having a two minute silence at 11:00am and while it felt a bit like a ritual at the time, it kinda made me  wonder. 

I have great respect for those who fought in the two World Wars, the stakes were high and the conditions were dreadful. All those people who were drafted in and I really can't conceive (in my wonderfully sheltered suburban life) the horror of being forced to go to war when you don't really want to and getting killed or maimed, the nightmare for the family back home, knowing that their loved one might not come back and there was never a choice there to make. 

What Remembrance Day this year has made me consider is how I feel about modern wars and what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Libya. This may upset a few people but over the past few years I've found myself having little to no respect for soldiers involved in these wars, I've not given to charities such as "help the heroes" simply because the soldiers I class as heroes are those from World War I and World War II and even their grandkids are old enough to not need support now I suspect. 

Why this big divide? For me the main difference is the element of choice. Do "heroes" choose to go to war? I'd say no but I guess they do, well in fairy tales and stories anyway. In real life I would say that the only time something needs to be done is when there isn't a choice or that the other choice is so wrong to be inconsiderable, that's the definition of "need" really isn't it? I don't see any of the current wars as that, I see them as fragile, pointless and horrifying. 

I guess what it all comes down to is whether the current wars needed to happen, and when a lot of the evidence for them can be considered as suspect (World Trade Center detonations, "terrorism" groups, Weapons of Mass Destruction that don't seem to have existed, no evidence of Osama Bin Laden being killed etc) you have to wonder who are the aggressors in these wars. If that ever was the case, if the UK and the United States are the "bad guys" then what does that make the soldiers that are fighting in them? Puppets? Murderers? This is what has made things so difficult in my mind for so long, if the soldiers make a choice to go to war but the information they have to base that decision on is suspect, does it dissolve their actions? It goes back to that old line I remember my mum saying a lot whenever a friend would make me join in on some stupid activity, "oh well if he told you to jump off a bridge would you?". 

But what I realised today is another side that I hadn't considered really, is it bravery? Is it a trait so pure and amazing and selfless that these troops are willing to offer up their lives in order to do what they think is right? Even if it might not be and the evidence is all lies, does that stop the troops being any less courageous if they're truly doing it in their minds for Queen and country, for what the same people fought for in World Wars 1 and 2? 

Today made me wonder if in my cynical mind there's no space to conceive traits like bravery or nobility, but at the same time, in a logical world there can never be good or evil - just shades of grey with outcomes in a scale of preferable to non-preferable. 

I guess for me, I can never make a decision without first considering it from every angle, I've always been like this, I'm a nightmare with a restaurant menu as I factor in things like "how full will I be later?" "will it take longer to make than everyone elses?" "too expensive" "Portion might be rubbish" etc, so it makes me feel odd towards anyone who could just believe what they're told without looking into it any further (in all fairness I'd probably envy them more than anything!). 

A lot of the people I know who are in the armed forces fall into three main categories for me,

1. Those who genuinely believe the job needs doing.
2. Those who want the money/benefits and can't do other work. 
3. Those who just want to "kill some darkies" (not my words). 

Worryingly this third category seems to be commonplace due to racial tensions especially around the north east of England where I'm from. When you know people like this, people who probably weren't sure what to do with their lives after they stopped being the high school bully or the nerd needing to prove himself a man, it becomes hard to feel the same way about those fighting in modern wars as one does about those who died in World Wars I and II. Is this purely because those older wars are now legend? That their participants are immortalised as caricatures, good Englishmen and bad Nazis as the details of those involved fade away? Or is it like I said before, because of choice, or because they were in the army already and chose not to leave? 

I hope I haven't upset people with my rambling here but it's just what I've been considering during the day. What are your thoughts and feelings? You can post them using the comments thingy below. Don't just flame me if you don't agree but please put forward your opposing point of view in as much detail as you can. Have I gotten this totally wrong? Is there even a right answer do you think?