Right, I just released a single. When I woke up this morning, I hadn’t planned to. What I had planned to do was to mix the track I recorded last night. Like everything I do, it’s a one take, unedited improvised performance. All the drums are played and looped live rather than being a pre-existing loop, and everything else is bass. The field recording was triggered during the performance, rather than added afterwards. So everything is happening in response to everything else. Here it is:
I mixed it today, experimenting with getting a really huge low end on the synth and the kick, and loved the way it came out. So as well as adding it to the subscriber-only album Stepping Stones, which is gathering together all the things I’m recording towards releasing a new solo album and making them available as they happen to subscribers, I thought I’d put this out as a separate single so everyone else can have it too 🙂
All of this music is released as episodes in an unfolding story. I’m less interested in how it fares as a standalone entity, and am more interested in it as an emblem, an avatar, a signpost of where I’m going and what I’m up to. That’s why the subscription is my focus. Convincing you that a particular album is worth buying is way less interesting to me than inviting you into the process of it all happening, and forming a community around that. if that’s interesting to you too, check out my Bandcamp subscription.
It’s a ‘pay what you want’ release, so you can pay or not as you feel able/inspired, or you can subscribe and get everything I put out in the next 12 months, plus 48 albums from my back catalogue. And if you subscribe before the weekend, you’ll get the new LEYlines album, LEYlines IV, included. After that, you’d have to buy that separately...
I love living in a world where music can be made and released in a matter of hours – it’s about 14 hours absolute start to release with this. If you want to play it on the radio, or do anything else with it like that, please feel free – let me know if you need more info…
And the title? That came from a Tweet by Vernon Reid. 🙂