So we’re back in England, tired, jetlagged, weirded out by being away for 2 months. It’s the longest I’ve ever been out of the UK in one stretch, for sure.
So let’s look at some tour facts ‘n’ stats: Continue reading “Tour blog Pt 2 – This is The End (or ‘how we lost money on a successful tour’)”
You may have seen via Twitter or FB already that Lobelia’s new solo album, “Beautifully Undone (Songs I Wish I’d Written)” is out now, via Bandcamp. Here it is:
I mixed and mastered it, and play bass on a bass and voice version of Sting’s ‘Consider Me Gone’. It’s a remarkable record. I’m really proud of my part in it, but her singing and arrangements are outstanding, and her choice of songs (many of which you’re unlikely to recognise) is inspired. Continue reading “Brand New Lobelia Solo Album, Featuring Me :)”
So, we’re 7 gigs into our tour – Green Brook, Toledo, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Wisner, Boonville – We’re having all kinds of fun, meeting up with so many wonderful friends, and making new acquaintances all over the place.
Bizarrely, 3 of the gigs so far have been in art galleries. That wasn’t planned, it just happened, and for that we’re happy and grateful. Playing music surrounded by great art is a real honour, and a deep inspiration. Continue reading “Tour Update”
As usual, our show at lovely @tapps‘ house was streamed, and is now archived on UStream – it’s embedded below, but if you click here, it should be iPad/iPhone/Flash-free viewable too…
There’s a lot of very silly stuff between the songs, and Tapps sits in with us on Djembe on four songs, which is fabulous. The chat does offer a bit more insight into where some of the songs come from too… If you’ve got the album, you’ll be able to hear the process of me learning the songs – I’m getting there with a few of them. The first three tunes on 11 Reasons… work really well as the beginning of my set (though at this show I switched the first and second ones round, just so I could start with something a little more ‘up’.)
Anyway, enjoy:
A quick update to let you know about an interview I just did with FretlessBassGuitarSite.Com – click here to read it.
It’s the first interview I’ve done since the release of the album, so that’s rather fun. Drop me a line if you want to interview me for your site/magazine/radio show/TV empire…
Each of my albums tends to have a different vibe to it, which often manifests itself in the way I use the technology at hand to make it happen… So here’s a few thoughts on how the looping part of the album played out. Half of this was written on the plane on the way over here, the rest, just now. 🙂 Hit play now, so you can hear it while you’re reading… (and if you download it, you’ll also get the PDF that comes with it which has specific program notes for each track, as well as some further thoughts on the project as a whole)
It hadn’t really struck me until listening back to “11 Reasons” on the plane over here to the US that I’ve shifted away from ABAB form on this record.
Unlike on Behind Every Word (the title track and Scott Peck in particular), none of the tunes have a verse and a chorus. They all evolve and morph the way all my music did before I got the Looperlative.
What has changed to make possible this kind of ‘step forward into an old method’ is the degree of subtlety and complexity with which I can manipulate multiple unsynced loops of different lengths – there’s a LOT of that going on on this album, whether in the big ambient passages or while playing with multiple melodic lines and post processing them in real time (and, in some instances, adding some filter-delay afterwards – the privilege of having multiple outputs on the looperlative, and therefor being able to mix things quite specifically once they’ve been recorded). I’m also using more and more synced loops of different lengths (multiples of whatever the original loop is – Travelling North is a prime example)
It’s interesting for me to note this unconscious shift back to the evolutionary model rather than the more traditional “Lamarckist” jumping back and forth between distinct sections. Perhaps in noting the change, I’m setting myself up to do a project of highly complex multiple section loop tunes … you heard the rumour here first 🙂
So, I managed to finish the PDF sleeve notes a lot quicker than I thought I would. Album was done. Do I wait til next Wednesday for the release day of my album, or do I sneak it out via Bandcamp a few days early? I think that’s what we do round here. It still won’t be available anywhere else (Amazon, iTunes, CDBaby, etc.) til after next Wednesday, but for you lovely people, it’s here now. Have a listen:
What now? Share it. Share the link. Send it to your friends, post it on facebook (if you just post the URL -Â 11-reasons-why-3-is-greater-than-everything – to Facebook, it’ll embed the player so your friends can hear it too!)
The Facebook ‘like’ button is a REALLY powerful sharing tool – please feel free to use it on this page, or on the album page itself
If you have a blog, please feel free – nay, obliged – to review it, embed it, tell people about it. I’ll be hugely grateful and will send you smiles and hugs across the interwebs.
If you post on any music-related forums, please share it with your fellow subscribers there – that would help a lot.
I really hope you enjoy it. I had a lot of fun making it, and am looking forward to playing these tunes in at our upcoming house concerts. See you in a living room somewhere soon!
My new album is officially out a week today (though it may just sneak onto Bandcamp a day or two early 😉 )
Here’s the press release that goes with it:
11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything –
Steve Lawson
Released 18th May 2011, via http://music.stevelawson.net
– each track comes accompanied by a short essay exploring the theme.
Given that “11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everythingâ€Â is his first solo studio album in 5 years, you could be forgiven for thinking that Steve Lawson has been taking time off from music. Little could be further from the truth. In fact, in the intervening years, Steve has been busier than ever: Continue reading “11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything – the Press Release”
As if by magic, two reviews of ’11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything’ have already come in – the first is by a writer called Oliver Arditi – Here’s the link to his review. My guess is that quite a few of you have already seen it, as he commented on Facebook that it’s already become the most viewed page on his blog ever. So that’s nice. 🙂 Continue reading “First Reviews In – Tweet Your First Impressions!”
OK, we’re here in New Jersey, playing a house concert tonight. Jetlag is the worst I’ve had in ages, which is probably due to flying with a toddler. 🙂
Both Lobelia and I managed to finish up our solo albums before we set off. Which is very exciting!
My new solo album is called ‘11 Reasons Why 3 Is Greater Than Everything‘, and will be out via bandcamp on May 18th, and via iTunes/Amazon etc. not long after that… That picture at the top of this post is the cover art, and there’ll be individual art for each track too, as well as extensive sleeve notes. And of course, I’ll blog some more info and thoughts on it here over the next few weeks. Continue reading “New Album Update And Tour News”
