We have been commissioned to write something "electronic and poppy" for a commercial advertising Urban Decay the cosmetics company.
Maybe this is a new direction for us, after all Mr Vince Clarke wrote the music a Smarties TV commercial back in the 80's
Finished CRASH these are Sarah's comments "LOVVA LOVVA the track though :-) Wonderful, sounds very slick and I love that Abba harmony on the verse." Nothing about all the extra bits I added!
Matt
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Sunday, 25 January 2009
FINALLY SUCCUMBED
to Twitter. Link here
Sorry not much there yet but added an app to my iPhone so updates will probably start to happen regularly.
Matt
Sorry not much there yet but added an app to my iPhone so updates will probably start to happen regularly.
Matt
Friday, 23 January 2009
SPLASHING OUT
We are coming to the final stages with the album now so the next steps are being put in place. Artwork is really important and equally as close to my heart as the music. The images below are various things that I will use to brief our designers with, these are bits of artwork I have come across recently. I'm writing a create brief for the designers and I will post that here when ready.
Some other exciting news is we have chosen our mastering engineer for this album, Simon Heyworth. Simon has been responsible for mastering some of the great electronic albums over the past 30 years including most of the Depeche Mode albums and all of the recent re-masters. He also mastered many of the OMD albums and of course Human Leagues - Dare. Simon is also credited as co-producing Tubular Bells with Mike Oldfield and was responsible for setting up the Manor House studios owned by Virgin Records. You can check out SImons company by following this link SAM
Of course both of these elements are quite an expense but I'm sure it will all be worth it.
Matt
Some other exciting news is we have chosen our mastering engineer for this album, Simon Heyworth. Simon has been responsible for mastering some of the great electronic albums over the past 30 years including most of the Depeche Mode albums and all of the recent re-masters. He also mastered many of the OMD albums and of course Human Leagues - Dare. Simon is also credited as co-producing Tubular Bells with Mike Oldfield and was responsible for setting up the Manor House studios owned by Virgin Records. You can check out SImons company by following this link SAM
Of course both of these elements are quite an expense but I'm sure it will all be worth it.
Matt
Monday, 19 January 2009
ALBUM UPDATE
So where are we with the album?
Well we have had a last minute boost of energy and decided to work on two new tracks, this was also because I felt I wasn't really getting anywhere with two particular songs, "Where to from here?" & "Yes/No". These were two of the very first ideas I presented Sarah with this time last year.
I will give you a quick review of the songs we have.
Tranquil Eyes - Heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and Tesco, this will probably be the opener for the album. Started life as an instrumental but I played it to Sarah and she thought of some odd lyrics. Not sure if this would translate well live, it's very robotic and hypnotic.
Goodbye - Previewed on our podcast last year, I had Yazoo in mind when coming up with the idea for this, not sure it really sounds very like Yazoo anymore but I like it.
POP - Inspired by an empty tube of Pringles which I sampled Christmas 2007. The track has an Art of Noise feel to it, more "Close (to the edit)" than anything else I suppose. Also has a Depeche "Shout" style loop running through it, this was created on the ARP 2600 the same machine used to create the original DM - "Shout" loop, although mine cost and weighs much less and is a piece of software.
Automatic - Nothing in particular inspired this one, this was finished Easter time 2008 so I haven't really listened to it for ages. Has a Mel & Kim bit in the Chorus.
Dirty Youth - You already should know, although this will be a slightly different mix.
Into The Blue - You already should know.
Crash - Sarah wrote the main synth line for this one, it will probably be the catchiest ones on the album, we really like it. I suppose it's close cousins are "On & On" & "Seen the light" so yeah it's very Vince Clarke. This one is new for 2009
Pleasurely That Machine - Up tempo throbbing dance type track, haven't really done one like this before, a few people have heard this and said they like it. Slight Human League rip off for the middle 8 from "Do or Die", not a sample though.
014a - No title as yet, again another new one for 2009. Influenced by DM, perhaps a bit of "Policy of truth" was in the back of my mind when I came up with the idea. Sarah has some ideas for the lyrics and they will probably be a little bit Goldfrappy.
6 VI SIX - Ladytron inspired track, Dirty synths, throbbing synthetic drums. This one is new for 2009
So there we have it, a quick update on the songs. In total there were 15 ideas written but these have been narrowed down to 10 hopefully very different tracks. The process of elimination has been down to the general crapness of some of the songs and my lack of enthusiasm for them.
I feel really good about what we have now.
Matt
Well we have had a last minute boost of energy and decided to work on two new tracks, this was also because I felt I wasn't really getting anywhere with two particular songs, "Where to from here?" & "Yes/No". These were two of the very first ideas I presented Sarah with this time last year.
I will give you a quick review of the songs we have.
Tranquil Eyes - Heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and Tesco, this will probably be the opener for the album. Started life as an instrumental but I played it to Sarah and she thought of some odd lyrics. Not sure if this would translate well live, it's very robotic and hypnotic.
Goodbye - Previewed on our podcast last year, I had Yazoo in mind when coming up with the idea for this, not sure it really sounds very like Yazoo anymore but I like it.
POP - Inspired by an empty tube of Pringles which I sampled Christmas 2007. The track has an Art of Noise feel to it, more "Close (to the edit)" than anything else I suppose. Also has a Depeche "Shout" style loop running through it, this was created on the ARP 2600 the same machine used to create the original DM - "Shout" loop, although mine cost and weighs much less and is a piece of software.
Automatic - Nothing in particular inspired this one, this was finished Easter time 2008 so I haven't really listened to it for ages. Has a Mel & Kim bit in the Chorus.
Dirty Youth - You already should know, although this will be a slightly different mix.
Into The Blue - You already should know.
Crash - Sarah wrote the main synth line for this one, it will probably be the catchiest ones on the album, we really like it. I suppose it's close cousins are "On & On" & "Seen the light" so yeah it's very Vince Clarke. This one is new for 2009
Pleasurely That Machine - Up tempo throbbing dance type track, haven't really done one like this before, a few people have heard this and said they like it. Slight Human League rip off for the middle 8 from "Do or Die", not a sample though.
014a - No title as yet, again another new one for 2009. Influenced by DM, perhaps a bit of "Policy of truth" was in the back of my mind when I came up with the idea. Sarah has some ideas for the lyrics and they will probably be a little bit Goldfrappy.
6 VI SIX - Ladytron inspired track, Dirty synths, throbbing synthetic drums. This one is new for 2009
So there we have it, a quick update on the songs. In total there were 15 ideas written but these have been narrowed down to 10 hopefully very different tracks. The process of elimination has been down to the general crapness of some of the songs and my lack of enthusiasm for them.
I feel really good about what we have now.
Matt
Friday, 16 January 2009
BEEB
Unfortunately the show isn't available on Listen Again, however we will be getting an audio transcript of the interview so we will post it here very soon.
Matt
Matt
Monday, 12 January 2009
ON THE RADIO
This Friday (16th Jan) we will be interviewed live on BBC Radio Leicester by Chris Baxter, we should be on just after 3.00pm
You can listen live via the BBC website at this address.
We will be talking to Chris in general about Northern Kind and our new album.
Matt
You can listen live via the BBC website at this address.
We will be talking to Chris in general about Northern Kind and our new album.
Matt
Friday, 9 January 2009
NOOOOOOOO!!!
Microsoft finally kills music with Songsmith
This is so lame, I can't believe this actually exists, surely it's a joke?
I did laugh at the fact that the girl is clearly using a Mac with stickers on it though.
This is so lame, I can't believe this actually exists, surely it's a joke?
I did laugh at the fact that the girl is clearly using a Mac with stickers on it though.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Monday, 5 January 2009
WHERE DID THAT GO?
Well Christmas and New Year came and went in a blur, apart from the great shows we did last year as highlighted by Sarah the only thing tat sticks our for me is... I DIDN'T FINISH THE ALBUM!
So it just leaves me to say hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, I'm off to finish the album. Back soon.
Matt
So it just leaves me to say hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, I'm off to finish the album. Back soon.
Matt
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