While reading the newspaper this morning, the Missus alerted me to the fact that the heron had landed in a tree in the neighbour’s back garden. While I say “the heron”, I am sure it could be a different heron, but the fact that the same species of bird keeps landing in our vacinity makes me believe that this is the very same animal and so therefore I will continue to call him “the heron” as if he is an old friend of sorts. Anyway, I didn’t have my camera to hand so I darted upstairs to fetch it and hurtled back down again. As I just lined up the camera to take the shot, the heron flew off. I am sure that he saw me and was having fun at my expense. The last time I managed to photograph him was on a neighbour’s roof. The really great thing about the hero is the size of these birds. Most wild birds in the gardens of Great Britain are titchy in comparison. Take the blue tit, which is as bit as my thumb or maybe a wood pigeon which is a little larger. When the heron lands, you notice it because of the size. It’s arrival in the garden is majestic and it’s size intimidating. I’ll get a picture of him, I swear by Ahab’s beard.
In the post: Fission Trip Vol 1 CD and Robert Fripp’s Love Cannot Bear album. One album is not bad, one album is an absolute stinkfest. Can you tell which is which?
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Late yesterday afternoon, the Missus called me excitedly from making music. There was a balloon going overhead. Despite there being an airfield a couple of miles down the road, we’d never seen a balloon go over. Plenty of warplanes heading for London for displays, etc, but no balloons. So I grabbed my camera and rattled off some shots. Because the balloon was set against a bright background of the late evening sky, it came out a bit dark. But despite this, I still think the pictures are great!
The balloon in the distance
A close-up view with burners on
Did some recording this afternoon. Found an interesting patch on the keyboard that created a random block arpeggio and so used this as the basis of the track. Not sure if anyone has been paying attention, but I am recording a kind-of sequal to “Textures” in so much as the songs interlink and of a relatively short length. The idea when doing something like this is to get mood over content, I feel. So I am looking for moods rather than creating some wild musical statement. Last week’s “Frog & Toad” is intended as a possible finale for the album. This next section comes after a tray called “Lay Back (and Think of England)” and hovers around the 15 minute mark. As usual, this just a rough mix and it is surely to change. The idea is that two synth guitars are having a duet with each other. Despite owning a guitar synth in some shape or form since late 1994, I’ve never actually recorded a guitar synth lead line, usually reserving the device as an atmosphere device. The tracking is usually far too random for that. But with my Epiphone being particularly stable and my internal pickup that I installed being the best installation I’ve ever seen, it worked out OK. And so I present the track for your humble ears:
Random Blocks [Rough Mix]
It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally released the “I Am Not Your Enemy” album in electronic form. You can now purchase it from the Mindawn website and you can buy it in two flavours FLAC or OGG (both of these are lossless audio formats). I’ve just got to start uploading the rest of my back catalogue up there next.
Go on, treat yourself this weekend to some luvverly Lock Music! 😉
My song “Forever Autumn” is currently being used in a couple of food-related podcasts. The EatFeed podcast features recipes and food ideas and you can hear the episode featuring my song at the link below:
http://www.eatfeed.com/shows/27_culinary_passage_to_india.htm
Remember podcasters, if you want to use my tunes in your podcasts, you can. I really don’t mind, but would like to know where my stuff is being used so send me a link so I can include it here. All I ask in return is that you send people to this website and maybe mention that my stuff is available commercially via iTunes. I do need to earn a little bit of cash now and then, eh?
Whoopee! You can subscribe and download my podcast by using iTunes. My scheme to depress all iPod owners to the point of misery is complete:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=83241904
Also, if you search for me on All Music Guide, my name comes up. Apparently, I am a “New Age” artist. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. It’s better than “Complete Tosspot”, I guess. Again, I’ve conned the authorities in believing that I am some kind of musician.
My campaign of mischief and misinformation continues. Mwaaahaahaahaaahhaaaa!
In the post: Anthony Phillips – Field Day. Now this should be an interesting album. Lots of twelve string guitar and interesting instruments such as the cittern and bazouki. It’s a double CD and I got it signed too. It says “Well Fielded!” A.P. I think that’s good cricket term, isn’t it?
Note to self: you use the word “interesting” an awful lot. You need to expand your vocabumalary.