22nd January 2012 - Frustration, and other minor things
It's funny, seven years ago I found myself in very much the same situation as I am now, waiting for an album to come out, and feeling guilty for making progress on future music. The Blackbirds' Revenge has been added to the 'coming soon' section of the Jozik Records website, which signifies that things are definitely in motion, so hopefully that'll be out soon. The lead times on self-released physical stuff and net releases are so much shorter that I think I'll probably be going down the path of a combination of those in the future. Over the past year I've become increasingly turned off by the whole physical 'product' release thing. On a related note, I don't think Bullfinch Records is really going to be happening anymore. I might retain the name for my own releases though. Similarly, I shan't be compiling the second FSOLBoard album, Terminal Window 2; Craig (Loose Link) is putting that together though, and a couple of pieces from last year's unheard electronic-classical sessions will be appearing on it.

Elsewhere, my good friend Tim Dwyer is currently working on an Off Land version of my Second Thought track 'May', which will fall somewhere between remix and cover version and will hopefully be released this May. It's sounding great so far and I can't wait to hear the final thing! Speaking off Off Land, Tim recently produced a podcast for Stasis Recordings called Reconnection, which features my Obliquity track 'Erosion Reversed'. That can be heard at the Stasis site here, or on iTunes here.

I recently declined a slot for one of this year's Awakenings shows, as in all honesty I don't think the music I'm currently making would be at all suited to an ambient/electronic music gig (folky guitar stuff not prominent in the EM scene), and more importantly, I have no idea how I'd transfer it live without other musicians anyway! This is the last year Jez is doing Awakenings, so unless somebody takes over the reins, it could be the last chance to go to one of these gigs! So I'm hopefully going to be attending as many as possible, what with moving back to the midlands at some point.

Composition-wise, I've been playing with some more stuff on my 4-track. I took some speech from the television for one track which is sounding rather nice, on the only synth-based piece I'm really working on at the moment. No title for that yet. I've also updated the writing page with lyrics for some songs I'm working on at the moment. I'm not sure what the instrumental:song ratio will be in the future, although it'll still be more instrumental based I think. Listening-wise, I have been going through a Talk Talk phase recently. Their progression from 80s new wave to longform, experimental acoustic post-rock is incredible, their albums come highly recommended to anyone who isn't familiar with them. And I think that's probably enough ranting for now! :)

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