Modern Game 4 Recording

Things feel bleak at the moment. The economy seems to be depressed, even considering this is a traditional annual low. I feel hounded by requests and favours. I expect things come in waves, so can hope for some glimmers of success. Christmas Tails is getting some nice publicity courtesy of local journalist friends, so this is one positive. Andrew send me his tune for the album today. On the face of it it's a simple rendition of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem', yet, as in all of his music, he's managed make it full of fun and joy.

Another glimmer is my singing. The most recent, third, Modern Game re-recording was at the start of 2022. I recorded new vocals for 'Love in a Hopeless World' and 'House of Glass' today and am astonished at how much easier I found the process than before, and how much instantly better the results are than those of a mere 3 years ago. So, 3 years can be a long time.

I will keep some of the old vocals. The distorted rock vocals in 'Coming Back to Earth' are fine. The hard part now is the general mixing, which is down to the complex and non-standard arrangements with many of the songs. 'Two Kinds of Animals' has huge quiet bits, then an explosion of sound effects, vocoder megaphone speech, and other things which can't be 'mixed' in a true sense, so these sections can throw off checks of global balance. The pop songs like the two I recorded today are much easier; most were broadly fine but benefitted from less bass and a few more high pass filters.

In bleak times or times of plenty we must work just as hard, steadily heaving our rock.

Last night was the television joy of Celebrity Traitors, a rare example of a contemporary programme I've watched. In this case, Deb and I watched it all together over the weeks. It was a gripping series, and genuinely moving to see Alan Carr win.

Tonight is the preview of the Castle Park Open Art Exhibition and Colin from Galleria Balmain should be there, which will be nice. I must sell a painting here, and if so it will be 'Song of Experience'...

Now, I must attend to my outfit.

The Modern Game 4, Phone Irks, Aldora Britain

A day of work on The Modern Game remaster. It's amazing how much my voice has changed and improved since even that 3rd recording of it. Some tracks didn't really benefit much from new vocals, so some are more or less complete. 'Masculinity Two' was remixed a little. New vocals for 'Beyond Mars' and 'Two Kinds Of Animals'. Mars is a complex mix, it's largely piano, strings, vocals; a lot of mid-range sounds, not much bass, and even fewer high frequency sounds.

I had a message that my phone is not 4G compatible; hugely annoying as my mum bought this phone a couple of months ago from a phone shop with the specific aim of buying 4G phones for myself and herself. It seems that neither hers nor mine is 4G and that she was mis-sold. I did suspect my phone wasn't; the little '4G' symbol wasn't on screen, and my phone is full of bugs and doesn't appear to be a UK phone (the only city available in the time zone settings is Beijing). Similar (but again hopefully 4G) phones are now in short supply and expensive, so two for £70 have been ordered, with a long wait and a hope that these will work.

Aldora Britain published my interview, then asked for payment, which was explicitly stated as not necessary beforehand. Despite that, I of course expected this. Aldora Britain have something of a nagging and scamming reputation, but it's a good enough article, and I am, at very least, in a small group with the other artists in the issue. If I had an interview in a magazine I'd buy the magazine, so I made a voluntary payment. I will wait to see how far they promote their magazine.

Music Dream, Christmas Tails Cover Reveal, Prometheus v3.77

I watched an episode of Tracking Sounds  on YouTube, featuring 'Madam Who?' last night. What great pop songs she writes and produces. After the hour of listening, I listened to many of her singles. Pure pop, great melodies, intelligent lyrics. I can hear the Go-Go's influence.

I slept badly. I dreamt that I was set to meet Pete Saxer, for a long stay of some sort. While all packed and ready I'd set my watch oddly, and confused the alarm time and the actual time so I missed the bus in great disappointment. A second dream featured myself and Deb, playing in a music performance. A band of 4 or 5 young men, boys to us, were playing as a band too. I discussed synthesizers with them. Their instruments were simple, amateurish in their way, but they had youth and the joy of naïve mistakes.

Today, I completed a text interview today from a music zine and record label called Aldora Britain. I noticed that I am (rather than 'we are') in the local press with a Christmas Tails story written by Jonathan White. This was sent out before the cover creation day, a second story was submitted very recently with photos from the day, including photos of the artists.

It's also the public 'cover reveal' for the album. Here it is:

Most of today was spent fixing a bug in Prometheus, a rare thing now. The program can set an parameter in a playing instrument, track, or the whole song. Since v2.20 in 2010 these can slide from one value to another, so I can, for example, gradually fade down the volume of a track, or turn up the reverb wet. In all this time I've never faded two different parameters over the same space of time. This is quite legal and was designed to be possible, but the logic of what to fade to was a bit scrambled and didn't work. In fact I can start a fade of, say, pitch, and end the fade as, say, amplitude and, until today, the second value would be considered pitch! In all of the years I'd not noticed this obvious bug.

So I spent today fixing this. I also added the feature to automatically name a track by the first instrument played on it. So, now Prometheus is at v3.77.

I'm feeling very musically inspired. I've started the basic admin of the remaster/re-recording of The Modern Game. Listening back, there are some vocal elements that I can do much better today. Some of the first version vocals, the weak but emotional 'All The Broken Flowers' will be kept. I want to get this all out of the way, and the next one, so I can work on new things.

Fall in Green Production, CD Sorting

Today, finalised the music for the Christmas Tails Fall in Green track. Deb wrote the words a couple of weeks ago. I started by experimenting with keyboard sounds and modified the 'Tron Flute' to be something like Tron Strings, a sort of crackly and band limited string quartet. I played a few chords while mentally running though the words. The melody was largely in the bass, the music was essentially some chords which shifted majestically.

Today I experimented with a few layers, but this fundamentally live piece worked largely as played. I've added a deeper bass for some parts, and added an alien clarinet sound here and there. One final thing was adding some ambience, some live scenery, so I took a live recording. I think all is ready for Deb's vocals.

Everything was complete by 1pm.

Most of the day was spent updating my old CD collection, those 'second rate' discs without cases. I've created, printed, and cut new artwork for the CDs which lacked it and assembled many with new cases, including the 9-discs of Daniel Barenboim playing the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. A lot of these 'second rate' discs are best-of discs. I'm unsure what is worth keeping, though some are decades old and hold a special memory, rather than being good quality music. I can re-buy some, like 'Heart and Soul', the T'Pau album. Some, like Bucks Fizz' Legends (I can hear you applaud my taste) are out of print. I always preferred actual albums rather than anything best-of.

I may bin a few. Lots of discs have already been binned today. Aphex Twin (boring, a gift), even a Missa Solemnis; I don't need lots of versions of this. I'm wondering whether it's worth keeping my 9 CDs of the complete Bruckner Symphonies, when I found them forgettable. I'll keep Sibelius and Mendelssohn, and probably the Wagner Operas. My aim should be to create a palette, a wide gamut of quality. I'll keep Punishment of Luxury, and The Mothers of Invention album for now. I'll ditch Abba Gold, and all of Yes with joy. 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' is an interesting production, but even that, their only hit, is hardly a good song; and everything else Yes ever did is massively worse. I don't have that Trevor Horn album anyway.

Frodsham, CD Shelves, Winter Party Poster, Au Revoir Distrokid

Frenetic days. A trip to Frodsham yesterday to deliver my three paintings to Castle Park Arts Centre, then back home and a quick type up of Wednesday's event to form some sort of press release.

Then, putting up my CD shelves, which was exhausting. Drilling the wall and fitting the rawl plugs wasn't not too difficult, but the screws did not want to go in, they entered half way and spun like crazy, until forced. I half think that the speed of the screw was causing the plug to melt or twist somehow. After this, a trip to Deb's for some more tweaks, mostly aesthetic to the alcove shelves.

Today I moved by CD collection from one set of drawers to the new shelves. I now have the sort of CD shelves I could only have dreamed of in the 90s, and perhaps even then secretly wanted.

I love jewel cases, and often throw away CDs which ship in those horrid cardboard cases. My old theory was to amass 100 CDs, and cast away any that were worse than those 100, thus evolving the best 100 CDs evet; but I found myself wanting more than 100, so I kept some. These were mostly filed, disc only with minimum artwork, in one of those books where the plain discs can be slotted in. That book now presents a problem, I want to remove those discs and put the discs back into CD jewel cases.

This will take days. I want to make and print my own artwork for each disc, I at least need to see the spine. I already feel overwhelmed at the work.

I had news that my talk at Macclesfield College due this week, in planning since July, has been magically cancelled yet again. This date has already been set three times. I can't afford to waste more time on this.

The album cover is finalised, the big public reveal set for Wednesday. Another job done today was the design of the poster for the Crewe Library Winter Party, and the final cancellation of my remaining Distrokid releases. I must, therefore, get working on the fourth recording of The Modern Game this month. My priority though, is finishing the music for the Fall in Green Christmas Tails track. This is becoming urgent.

Onwards I dart.

Shelves, Another Violet Night Released

Slept for nearly 12 hours and awoke at 10:30. First attended to a few changes and some feedback from the album cover design. I've added Andrew's cat 'Scrabble' to it, nice to have Andrew included on the cover, even if by proxy!

Most of the day was spent putting up my shelves, the lower set. First, these were put against the wall in the right place, then the brackets marked and attached. The screws were a tiny bit too long, 1mm or so, so very slightly caused some barbs inside. Then, the shelves were held to the wall. They were slightly trapezoid; perhaps inevitable because of the way they were assembled. I corrected this then marked the wall holes. These were drilled twice, with a 3mm then 7mm bit. This was the easiest wall drilling I've ever done, all due to these new bits!

The rawlplugs were fitted but some of the 50mm screws got stuck and kept spinning. I removed them with difficulty, then used the thinner 3.5mm diameter screws rather than 4.5mm. Those worked, though I'd prefer the strength of the 4.5mm. It may be that the rawlplugs simple expanded too much at the bottom end. I keep feeling the desire to remove the thinner screws and replace, but 12 50mm screws should hold the shelves. The length is perhaps more important than the width, screws much more commonly fall out than snap.

I marked the top shelf, and had the idea of using M4 washers to stop the bracket screws from being too long, this worked brilliantly.

Then, at 5pm, Deborah reminded me that it was the release day of Another Violet Night! I did some basic release duties on Bandcamp, made a few social media posts. The first video goes live tonight.

Christmas Tails Cover, Snowflake Sheet Music

Today, working on the Christmas Tails cover. Photographing the plain artwork, then working on the digital version. It's a similar look and idea to last time, but the colours here have a a green rather than blue base, so the letters have more blue. Here is a comparison between the first album and the draft-in-progress of the new album:

Then, work transcribing the sheet music for my song, 'Will You Be My Snowflake'. The song is fine and fun, but I wrote it two years ago, and it's not pushing any limits, not showcasing any brilliance, and it can't really be said to be like my music except that it's wild, unpredictable, and utterly different. I may even write another, but my musical priority is working on the Fall in Green track. I've played a few improvised chords and will use that MIDI sequence as my basis for that. This, at least, will be an unusual and expressive Christmas song.

Much of this month has been spent on woodwork. I'd hoped to remaster two or perhaps three albums. In the end, I managed just Tree Of Keys, but that at least was certainly improved.

After the Fall in Green track I must remaster The Modern Game, as it will soon be taken down. A few days ago I sold the first ever copies of The Modern Game book and Deep Dark Light.

Onwards we roll our heavy boulder.

Shelves and Cover Creation Day

The main job of yesterday was painting and staining my shelves. I was lucky that they fitted down the stairs, to carried outside, and stained black. The floor is now full of black marks. I have a solvent based black stain, but Golden Fluid Acrylic, Carbon Black, with water makes a much better and more even stain than the solvent black. That paint makes a superlative stain, but works best for the finest particle colours like this one, the phthalo's, dioxazine.

I also upgraded Prometheus with a new audio effect, a random filter/amplitude/pitch effect, which unifies all three values. This is useful for a degree of realism, as louder, brighter sounds often move a bit higher in pitch in natural instruments.

In the evening, I did a bit more of Deb's alcove shelves. Two problems appeared which were solved. Firstly, the side columns fell away. These rest on the floor, so I didn't think the joint to the top (lintel-like) part needed to be strong, but I hadn't anticipated torque force of the swinging doors. This was considerable, and the joint broke due to that, not the door weight. This was fixed with glue, then two 50mm vertical screws. They were in the plans from the start, but I'd hoped to avoid them for aesthetic reasons. A double dowel inside may have mitigated the torque force, but would have complicated the hot-melt glue system. The left door in now fitted well. The second problem was slight shelf sag, which was fixed with a hook-eye in the back 'wall' below the shelf, to take the weight; the shelves are now fitted too. The next step is fixing the whole thing in place with long (over 100mm) screws, then fitting the right door in place, which will mean removing and moving its hinges.

Today, a busy cover creation day in Crewe Market Hall for The Electric Sprout Foundation album. Creative Crewe kindly tagged me on to their event and supplied a few pens and felt tips. Carol Wilkinson has always been hugely encouraging and supportive to me and my art, since the beginning, offering me my first exhibitions in her beloved shop The Cubby Hole. But, she is encouraging and supportive to all local arts, she's a special community asset, like Mike Drew is, like John Lindley is.

All of the artists bar two came to today's event. Paul Parish arrived first, the man who came up with the album title.

I created a square of cardboard as the background and quickly painted it green. The plan was a sort of forest with the artists and animals hiding behind trees. There weren't many animals, but Charlotte from the RSPCA came along with some animal photos, perfect! Most of the creation was a matter of visitors (mostly children, though most of us music artists had a go too) colouring tree or leaf shapes, then me sticking them on. Deborah came before noon, then the people from Congleton; Mike Drew, Pete and Andy, John Lindley, John Miller, Glyn Roberts; and later Steve and NatalieGrace from Nastee Chapel, and Mike and Rona from We Are Nomad.

Photographer Peter Robinson came and took lots of great photos of the day (the photos here are Deb's, the first I have to hand). Peter's a mainstay of the local press, a press which today relies on volunteers to write and produce local news.

There wasn't a time where all of the electric sprouts were present at once, but there were lots of group images. One album was sold there, and the total raised so far is approaching £100. Next, I must finish the design, photograph it, then add details like the title text. I can't wait to share the album with everyone.

Back row: Glyn Roberts, Charlotte from Stapeley Grange, Peter Lilley. Front row: John Miller, Mike Drew, Mark Sheeky.