To mark what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday, I have made another “Prog Review” video on YouTube explaining why I think Queen II is in fact a progressive rock album.
Category: Diary
This set of recordings were committed to hard drive between April and September 1999. At that moment in time, I’d only dipped my toe in the water of “ambient” music and was taking my cue from Robert Fripp, Brian Eno and Terry Riley. I remember that these recordings were put down quickly and it being quite a fraught, yet exhilerating process as it was really seat-of-the-pants stuff. One mistake or duff note and the take would be ruined, so you had to keep focus and really concentrate on the process. However, that rush of adrenalin was the key, I believe, to these recordings.
In terms of equipment, I was only using my Fender Fat Strat guitar and my Roland GR-1 guitar synth – there were no delay pedals in my collection at that time. The really good thing about the GR-1 was that you could modify the sounds so that had a slow decay, so you could trigger a note and it would resonate for a long while, allowing you to move your fingers to another note or chord. So you could create these big smears of sound and create a veritable audio soup without the need for looping or delay pedals. The sound would then decay slowly allowing you to consider your next move…or not.
I don’t know if this is particularly good or not – I have a great fondness for it because I was moving off the map – but here it is cleaned up for the 21st century and available as a free download too.
So this is the album “Blue” and it represents my first steps into ambient music.
Enjoy!
I don’t ever send music off for review or to record companies or to whatever. My music is mine and belongs to me and no-one else. I decided to send a copy of “The Luckiest Man in the World” to Sound on Sound – a magazine I have read since the early 1990s and is key to my musical education – in order to see if I could get some feedback on the quality of my music production. Unfortunately, the review didn’t really go that way and evolved into a more traditional music review. The criticism is valid, but I was hoping for more on my mixing and overall sound of my album. Oh well, maybe I should make some sweeping soundtracks instead?
Look at my manic, smiling face - hee hee hee...
And to mark this epic review, I might as well point you in the direction of where you can get it:
In order to garner any interest in my music, I have to give it away. If the professionals cannot sell their wares, then how can a lowly amateur such as myself? Am I still an amateur? I don’t know. I just do what I do and hope for the best. That’s all one can do, isn’t it? Just be. Ooooh, getting a bit metaphysical here.
Anyway the following review appeared on Jamendo, a few hours after the album went live on there, and it sums up what I was trying to achieve with this collection perfectly. Hitting the nail on the head is a fine art, but this reviewer got out his invisible reviewing hammer and knocked home that nail with one fluid motion.
Five star review from “Wolfsong.The Poet”
Sweet and relaxed . . .
a laid back style of music . ..
beautiful . . . it reminded me of laying in the grass,
without a worry on my mind . . .
feeling the whole world at my back . .
and watching the clouds drift away . . .
leaving blue skies . .. and forever,
an eternity of summer days
and dreams . ..Day dreamy music . . .
And you can download the album for FREE at Jamendo here.
Something delicate on the verge of change...
The new album is called “Steady State of Flux” which is a contradiction in itself and I managed to take the picture of the dandelion the other day whilst in the garden. It seemed to illustrate my point, something that is delicate but in a state of immediate flux.
Well there you go. You can visit the album page which is here.
You can listen to the album using the player below and if you feel particularly supportive you might want to buy a digital copy. No? OK, it was worth a try…
To see, listen to and purchase my discography please visit: http://music.darrenlock.com
I’ve kept schtum about the moronic hoards that have destroyed hard-working people’s businesses, properties and communities during the past few days. In the past, the disenfranchised rioted because they had nothing or were rallying against a political idea or even massed against injustice. But over the last few days, there’s been none of this. It has been opportunist chaos, a chance to raise hell and not face the consequences. It’s sad because the only people they are hurting are themselves because it is their own communities that have been damaged. Money will drift out of the area and those businesses won’t return – the infrastructure weakened, you turn your community into a ghetto. Well done, have a banana! Pat yourself on the back with the self-satifised glow of idiot glee.
The fallout (and I mean literal fallout) has been huge chunks of ashes from the local riots drifting out to us. In the garden and around our property are large chunks of burnt wood – the remnants of the riots.
Should I put them on eBay and give others the opportunity to own a genuine piece of the action?
Own your own piece of the action...contact me for details!
In an effort to get with the times and feebly push my sodding music on an uncaring world, I have added nifty carousel gizmo in the header space above which should allow the visitor to scroll through my various albums and listen to them at music.darrenlock.com. Yes, you can also just zip over to music.darrenlock.com and have a gander at me back catalogue. It’s OK, you don’t have to buy anything and there are a couple of freebies in there somewhere…