Exciting times!
I used to make music many years ago. Back in the 90s, I had a Saturday night residency playing house/rave at a great club in Southampton. I had some white label rave tracks released, some remixes. And then … nothing.
Despite being the first among my peers to get decks, learn to scratch, get stuff released, DJ at a club etc, it never really happened for me. I sold pretty much all my music kit many moons ago and despite tentative ‘toes in the water’ moments over the years, never quite got back into it. I found the digital music tech too confusing – so much power, but utterly baffling.
In the last few years I have been tinkering again a bit, but still quite off-and-on. Now, a couple of things happened that are down to a certain band named Orbital.
First, when the Green/Brown album tour was publicised, they used a pic of them in the studio right at the beginning.
All I could think was that it reminded me HEAVILY of my old setup.
It got me thinking: “What if? What if I’d stuck at it? What if I didn’t always criticise my own stuff to the point of hating it?”
The second thing: standing in the crowd on the Green/Brown tour in Southampton, listening to their early stuff for the first time live, and thinking “They were just working it as they went along when this was produced … and it sounds amazing!” Something clicked that night, and I vowed to give it another go.
At the end of June, I submitted an album’s worth of material to a service that will get it on to Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify etc later in July. 80% of it was done since that gig in Southampton.
Of course, I can’t lie and say it’s Orbital level of quality … but I’ve listened back to the tracks many times and the self-criticism I normally have is just not there. I actually like it! And some of it might have some Orbital influence in there.
So, thanks, Paul and Phil. You helped to unlock a creative block that was around for far too long. I’m hoping it’s not just a temporary blip, too!
The album is due for release on 22nd July 2024. In the meantime, the tracks are all available over on my Bandcamp and SoundCloud pages.
There’s also this little sneak preview of track 1 ‘Deeez Lites’ with a scrappily-put-together video for you.
Leave a Reply