War And Nuclear Love Finalised, Poetry Night, Knutsford

Two full days. Finalised all album admin yesterday; War And Nuclear Love is now scheduled for release on 3 July 2026. Then started work on some full frame videos, incorporating the subtitles. This stage is complete.

In the evening attended the Creative Crewe Poetry Night. Carol is always a joy to meet and full of enthusiasm. If the aim of a performance evening is excitement, showmanship, and pzazz, this had none - it was as dreary as a Catholic funeral, and about half of the poems were poor simple rhymes by simple folk. No amplification meant that the poets were too quiet, many completely inaudible. Despite this, several of the poems and performances were very good. One highlight was a prose poem by Iain Chalmers who with great brilliance described a vehicle crash of books, with each genre of book; limericks, 'chic lit', medical encyclopediae; affecting the description of the event. The inability to hear the poems, and the incredible slowness and poor organisation of the night, which overran by 30 minutes, were downsides, but the warm company and meeting friends there a highlight, and perhaps this is the main reason for such events anyway.

Today, a visit to the Oil Art Advisory, which is always a joy. Delivered 6 paintings to them and collected 4 frames to fill with something.

I also realised that my 'Monsters of Spring' painting on BlueSky was flagged as a sexually explicit image, and hid it, which I found annoying. Some slight 'nudity' of a computer model true. Such labels may harm my reputation on there, I'd have happily deleted the image instantly if I'd have noticed this label. I'll avoid any hints of nudity from now on.

One small job today, updated Prometheus to allow floating point beats-per-minute. Of course the program uses floating point speed internally anyway. There are occasions when this setting may be useful, for example if you need to half the tempo of a song which is 135 BPM. This change was pretty simple to implement but isn't fully tested.

WANL Album Admin

A satisfying and full day of work on War And Nuclear Love. First assembled the sheet music for publication and finalised the lyrics booklets, then made a slight lyric change. Some words in the title track were:

I take my fuse
And masturbate as I muse on

I changed this to:

I take my fuse
And I think of God as I muse on

The word 'masturbate' would label the song, and therefore album, as 'explicit' and would limit the scope of its release, which was something of a factor in my deciding to change it, but the primary reason is that the word was a distraction in the song, overly strong. The more subtle (yet still implied) second version is a better lyric.

This change meant re-singing that line, which I did today, and invisibly blended it with the older take. With this, the music was complete. The album was listed in draft on Bandcamp, sent for release, and updated on my website. Also added more artwork pages, so now the iTunes booklet will include the lyrics. Filed and deleted the temporary files, the vocal recordings etc., created the MP3 stub files (if I ever need MP3 versions), proofed the music, burned an archive CD, and lots of other important admin work.

Most of the album is now complete, but I still need to create Spotify Canvas animations, full screen animations for YouTube, and register the music with more music authorities. I can do that when the release is approved.

This evening, made some preparations and announcements for the sale on Steam.

War And Nuclear Love Work

Final day of sheet music for War And Nuclear Love. At times I think that nobody will ever play any of this, and that my days, week, years of working on this tedious and difficult sheet music is pointless - but this is not certainly true; there are two main reasons. First, that nobody else bothers, and second, that data integrity has been shown to be an important driver of success and civilisation. I file and record my work in great details because such work is part of the purpose of life itself. Either way, if I'm ever to play these live I really find this useful, so a couple of days work to transcribe an album isn't so bad. I managed to transcribe the complex guitar parts in 'After The Battle' today, and the music for 'Post-Apocalyptic Playground'.

By 3pm the draft scores were complete, but I had lots more art to create, at least for the booklet and iTunes booklet, so I really needed to make a few more full CD booklet pages, and a CD surface while I'm at it, although there are no plans for a CD at the moment.

One other job today was launch the Goodreads Giveaway for The Many Beautiful Worlds of Death. This week-long promotion give away a free copy of the Kindle book, with kind requests for a review from the winners of this lottery.

War ANL Sheet Music Day 1

A full day working on the sheet music for War And Nuclear Love. Started with the more difficult tracks, first 'Radioactive', then 'Remembering Hans Blix', which required hand transcription, then the long songs 'Written on Rice', and the title track. More tomorrow.

More War ANL

A full day and evening of work on War And Nuclear Love. The tracks needed some essential final changes to the start and end parts of each track. This morning I extended the start to the title track to blend it with the prior 'Radioactive'. This won't be the case on the stream version though, only a future (and perhaps unlikely) CD version.

I then went into the garden and recorded the old rusty luggage trolley, which can fold out. Flexing this resulted in a suitably creepy metal swing sound, perfect for the zombie park on Post-Apocalyptic Playground. Then, finally recorded the vocals for the title track. I've changed some of the words. Verse 2 now reads:

Look at the switches
The flashing lights
There's something of a Christmas morning here

Handsome generals
Encourage me to play
And I've nothing better to do today

I pray and hide
God tells me he's on the side of

War and nuclear love etc.

Added the new vocals to the song this afternoon, and added some harmonies for the 3rd lines of these verses (though not the Christmas line, this sounds better without the harmony, it's more conversational than musical). The final step was the 'solo' for this song, which I'd forgotten about. I grabbed the guitar and spent an hour experimenting. Playing chords to the part seemed to sound better somehow, but nothing was quite right. I took a break at 3pm, then decided to record power chords for the final chorus (easy to play now the key is up, simply E-min, C-Maj, A-Maj, E-Maj/Emin). Then played a simple lead solo in an instant for the proper solo part. Thus, the song is complete.

I've noticed that many tracks have a slight tendency to be stronger on the left, perhaps due to my preference for that ear. I've adjusted Post-Apocalypse to match.

Overall, I'm happy with this EP, particularly the new tracks. My singing and production skills have never been better, nor has my keyboard and guitar playing, not that I've ever been much of a guitar player. So, this is a good time to at least create some music, and I am keen to get that old song of 'Written on Rice' out there; and the war theme seems to be culturally appropriate...

Some slight cover changes:

Tomorrow I'll charge into the sheet music, this may take two days.

War And Nuclear Love Progress, Purpose of Music

A busy 24 hours working on the new album. Last night I had to decide whether to work on a full album, or an EP. An EP would mean 6 tracks or fewer, but there is little time for an album; that would probably take up at least another full month and I'm already getting bored with the project. My key motivation was to produce something to enhance and match the Radioactive theme and 'Written on Rice', good tracks that are ageing away and ready and ripe for release. The 6 track limit has been reached, so I decided to call it an EP, and ditch the possible additional tracks. One called 'Einstein', which was in the earliest of stages is now filed, along with a heavily electronic pop song currently called 'Every Day and a Day', which is largely complete apart from the lyrics. The gentle track called 'At the End of Life There's Hope' is again filed away for the future.

It also means there will be no room for the original mix of Radioactive from the game itself. The version on here is a new recording made in Prometheus rather than Noise Station. The bass and high squeals are a little more under control in the new recording.

So the track list will be:

1. Radioactive
2. War and Nuclear Love
3. After the Battle
4. Post-Apocalyptic Playground
5. Remembering Hans Blix
6. Written on Rice

This morning, extended the Hans Blix song, and have extended the intro to 'After the Battle' too, then got to work on the cover art, starting with new photographs. The result looks rather like that Albrecht Durer painting, quite unintentionally.

I need to finalise the music as soon as possible, but 'War and Nuclear Love' still needs the final vocals. I'll have to work on the sheet music and Spotify Canvases as quickly as possible, all to be ready for my self-imposed deadline of next Saturday. It won't be released for some months though, until after The Myth Of Sisyphus has run its course, so I can defer this work.

In other news I've sold my first works at the Oil Art Advisory, and have sold my first copy of the new Many Beautiful Worlds of Death audiobook, both sales welcome and needed. My music remains an obscure backwater in my oeuvre, but this is the case for most artists today. This won't stop me trying my best in this artform (though I will of course continue to do my best in painting and writing too, and soon).

I was asked on Bluesky what I aimed to achieve with my music - a pertinent question, and not something I'd even considered. Art is, for me, a goal in itself, so my key aim is to represent something meaningful, do my creative best, that which is a bit better and hopefully a bit different from what has come before. My goals can't be social, as my music is largely, but not wholly, ignored by the world and I'm unlikely to ever to receive money or recognition, but I know that this was often the case for many living artists of the past. There are many obscure but brilliant artists that I wish had made more art while they could. I don't want to be like them, so while I have health, eyes, ears, it is something of a duty for me to create at my best.

War And Nuclear Love Vocals

Okay, two slow slow, but progressive days working on the War And Nuclear Love album. Found space to record vocals for 4 tracks yesterday. This always takes a bit longer for new tracks compared to re-recording vocals for older songs, as no matter how much is planned there's always a degree of experimenting with layers.

'After The Battle', and 'Rememebering Hans Blix' are pretty much complete.

I found 'Post Apocalyptic Playground' a little annoying as it hovers around E3 to A3, rather low for my range. In mood, and range, it's a bit like 'The Cat Phone Song', so I reminded myself of this. It also has elements of Bing Crosby's range, so I listened to some Bing while I thought about how to do it. An amusing and light tone is just right for this ironic song, which on the face of it is a romantic walk through the park, but the title and the somewhat zombie-like thumped piano solo taints it all with something darker. After recording these simple vocals, they seem perfect. I've added a harmony layer for the chorus, and some fill vocals here and there.

The vocals for 'War and Nuclear Love' are more complex to work on. I was reminded today just how hugely Jean-Michel Jarre's album structures loom large over my music. He tended to start with quiet, or at least long intro tracks, then at some point added one 'single', a highly melodic tune which seemed to be designed exactly as a single release, then obscure ones which were almost an opposite. I seem to have one pop-type, single-type, hit-type song, which leads into others which have less of that feel. Here, the single is 'War and Nuclear Love'. In production terms it reminds me of 'We Built This City' by Starship from 1985. The backing is very synthetic, and the verses are spartan apart from a bass and pumping synth stabs. My track is loaded with more energy. It may be finished with these first take vocals, but I'm unsure. They certainly sound thin and lonely compared to the fat and rich vocals in the Starship song, yet, mine seem to say enough. I've layered up the chorus with harmonies, and a planned vocoder.

Anyway, the Hans Blix song in particular seems to bend this album towards the present, so I feel I must rush to finish it, though I constantly wonder why I push myself so hard for this.

Onwards we charge like a rocket!

After The Battle

A day of work on this war music. At times I'm unsure why I'm doing it, perhaps over-pushing to work on this music despite the lack of a muse. The key factor is that it must be sufficiently new, sufficiently different from before, and ideally a tiny bit better too. My motivation, the original reason I started any of it was that the Radioactive theme (titled 'Radiation' since I wrote it in 2001) and the old song 'Written on Rice' are complete and worthy of a proper release, so I needed to make something to unify the release.

Yet, I underestimate the work of such an endeavour. I'm now keen to get all of this music done as quickly as possible, but with that caveat of originality or quality. Both are difficult.

Much of today, like yesterday, was spent on 'After The Battle'. Today I added a new synth guitar solo, this time recording the MIDI - I needed to redo this as yesterday's part only covered the first half. This gives the song much more feeling. Then I added some synth strings, here influenced by 'Running Up That Hill', as my constant chords and incessant beat made me think that song and I was interested in how energy, drama, contrast can be added by backing which seems to be mellow and regular. Kate's music is always more dramatic in my head than the plain written music seems. Here are my words so far:

After The Battle

The ash of my parents
Flavours the breeze
Over the dawn of winter's weeds

The guilt of the damage
Shakes me cold
The moon, cruel and new
Says goodbye to the old

To whom now can my love and loss be told?

Fragments of people
Seeking out fire
Can any stranger see my mood?

Life goes on
Says the sun
And the moss, four billion years
But little is lost

Unsure of it all at the moment. I must keep working and doing my best, by analysis. What does it need? More drama, more imagery, more emotion, stronger everything. Analysis analysis; but as I keep saying, time is short. I should be making things of depth and power, of brilliance. Can I do this here? I'm keen, by April, to move towards new visual art.