Playlist: Friends and Locals

February 17, 2017 — Leave a comment

Recently I’ve been feeling loved. It’s always wonderful to have supportive friends and family; something I’m extremely grateful for having.

I’d like to share some music from musicians I’ve become acquainted with over the past couple of years. I haven’t intentionally left anyone off this playlist, if you’re not on there it may be that I couldn’t find your artist profile on Spotify or Soundcloud (I also didn’t want to post demos/wips on soundcloud).

So below are two playlists for you to have a listen to this weekend…

Playlist: Young Influences (Hip-Hop through my eyes)

February 10, 2017 — Leave a comment

This week I discovered that it would have been the Birthday of Nujabes, and this month is the time of the year that he sadly passed away in a car crash. I discovered Nujabes at a young age having no idea of his influence on the worlds hip-hop scene; and indeed the scene of instrumental beat producers that I now admire. It wasn’t until I was introduced to J-Dilla in my early 20s (yes, it took that long) before I found out that both Nujabes and Dilla go hand in hand. Often referenced by the same admirers.

This lead to me thinking about a few things: At the age I discovered Nujabes I was watching an amazing anime called ‘Samurai Champloo’ (if you haven’t watched it go and check it out), the soundtrack to this was my first introduction to ‘trip-hop’, a sound that unknowingly a few years later I would fall in love with again but in a different world: ‘Beat Music’, a term that many musicians held in that category often ignore; simply the label given to the generalised sound (Check out this video ‘Not a Beat, Not a Scene‘)

ANYWAY. There here are a few iconic tracks/artists/albums that I discovered/heard around the time of Samurai Champloo, and this playlist is a small compilation of such. If I’m honest this music has been my only ever reference to Hip-Hop in my life. I jumped on the instrumental/beatmaker bandwagon before ever knowing what the lifestyle was; but I like to think that I have followed it subconsciously in some shape or form…

Playlist: Drummers

January 3, 2017 — Leave a comment

So… I started putting together my next blog, then remembered something that I’ve been wanting to put together for a while; a playlist of drummers I’ve come to admire or who’ve simply caught my ear through their creativity as players.

This playlist isn’t supposed be ‘the best drummers’, or even said drummers ‘best performance’; believe me it’s not. This is simply a playlist of tracks that have caught my ear as a drummer. Some I’ve played along to many a time, some I’ve never attempted, and some I simply sit back and enjoy. I hope you do to.

There will probably be many more to add, so I will update as I go along.

Playlist: All My Friends 2016

December 14, 2016 — Leave a comment

All My Friends is a great night run at Gwdihw in Cardiff by events organiser Lloyd Griffiths. They’ve been a great support to me over the past couple of years, and often invite me back to play in their awesome venue alongside a mixture of electronic and punk acts.

They’ve put together a Spotify playlist which I’m proud to be a part of, and featuring some of the great acts they’ve had on over the past year, so check it out below. Certainly worth a listen

“2016 has been very fun. It is genuinely exciting to look back on and see the list of ace headliners and more importantly brilliant shows, so thanks to everyone who’s supported great live music at our shows this year. Listen to what our 2016 sounded like with help from the likes of Titus Andronicus, BRAIDS, ALMA, Yama Warashi, Gallops, worriedaboutsatan, 5th Spear, Chorusgirl & many more!” All My Friends

News: Releases and getting onto Spotify… Eventually…

March 5, 2016

I’m getting itchy feet… Is that the expression?

2016 has been very busy. The day job is doing it’s thing, and when I can I sit down in the studio and bash my head against a brick wall to see what comes out (Brains, hair, dust, paint… You know) I will.

So before Christmas I sat down for a week and got a bunch of ideas going. My project was a mess of loops playing over and over again, whilst I drank coffee, nodded along and tried to consider what their end result might sound like.

Well, they were all buried into my hard drive. There’s me thinking “none of this is good enough, I hate it all… blah blah blah”. A few months ago I came across some inspiration sitting in the studio of Nick Harrison (drummer of Sous Les Paves). Nick was wanting to talk about how to play live, and how we both work in the studio. We threw ideas back and forth, and then I though “screw it, the best way for me to show you is this project file with all the new ideas I’m never going to use”. One by one we flicked through each idea “crap… crap… crap… oh wait… I like this”.

So it began. I discovered around 8 out of 20+ ideas that I wanted to work on. Standard. I got rid of all of the junk that was holding me back in the project, and kept the stuff that would keep me sane.

Since then I have been popping into the studio every now and then to sit down and arrange everything. Of course I’m still banging my head against a brick wall, but I’m getting somewhere, and I really like what I’ve got to show you.

To go along side this, I’ve decided to try and push my noise further afield. In this day and age, most people are using streaming services such as Spotify to listen to music, so even with stuff uploaded for free on bandcamp, most people won’t listen to it, others still don’t know what soundcloud is…

So within the next month or so (hopefully), Year One and Imperfections EP should be released on Spotify and other streaming services for you all to enjoy.

There is however a catch.

There is this well known dilemma that the music industry is failing. People aren’t wanting to pay for stuff, I’m exactly the same. It’s why I originally posted my stuff for free. This isn’t good. It’s come to my attention that people like myself, offering stuff for free, essentially means that people might not want to pay for the proper good stuff (I’ve said stuff a lot). I sit and watch interviews with people I aspire to be like, and what they’re saying is true. The internet is full of free stuff, that’s free for a reason. I’m beginning to believe in myself enough to put a price tag on what I create, to set an example and to try and encourage others to do so.

My releases will no longer be free through Bandcamp, but they will be free to stream from services such as Spotify etc, and available for purchase on Itunes, Amazon and Googleplay etc.

Onwards and upwards aye…