Next, please

 The Lunacy Board  Comments Off
Mar 232007
 

First of all, “Xenochronous Requiem For A Head Laying In A Field In Butler” was used to open this week’s Spellbound show, with host David Vesel commenting on the unlikelihood of chart success if Casey Kasem can’t even pronounce the title. That’s a relief, then.

I’ve finished mixing all the music from our last session. Most of it is just for our own use as demo reference for future practices, but there were also some new instrumental pieces for use in the Stockholm soundtrack. One of them is available for download over at The Lunacy Board site. It is based around a simple evolving, echoing guitar riff, with synth textures, found sound samples (including some yobstick) and a meandering rhythm backing.

The big one

We’re working towards a new extended piece to fit in with the repetoire we’ve already built up. Since we first started this project, we’ve been throwing ideas around towards a longer song which touches on a few topics we feel are linked around the area of evolution, mankind’s journey and definitions of good and evil. I’ve recently come up with an idea to link these topics within a narrative setting that has the potential to be our ‘big number’.

It’s still in the early stages, so I can’t give too much away, but the aim is to have a piece that both covers the topics of interest and also lets us demonstrate all the aspects of what we are as a band. It will have an evolving instrumentation, so we’ll start off with two instruments at the start of the piece and swap around between guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, theremin and whatever else we come up with. The sections of the song will deal with different characters and reflect that in the instruments chosen and the style of the section. This will let us cover everything from ambient soundscapes and avant garde rock to upbeat pop or country and western – anything is fair game. It’s going to take a while to put together and get it working fluidly, but we’ll start on it at the next session and hopefully will have a clip or two to post on the web site in the not-too-distant future.

Jan 302007
 

We’ve had some very positive feedback about “The Unofficial National Anthem” from a few sources now, which has been quite encouraging, comparing the song, or parts of it, to Syd Barrett, Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, Can, Jethro Tull and others. The song has recently been played on the Spellbound radio programme, which will be available as a downloadable mp3 within a week. It is also likely to appear on a compilation CD in the near future – details to follow shortly, I hope.

Work is progressing slowly but surely on “Stockholm“, both in terms of the visual side (with animated scenes progressing well – almost 20% complete) and the audio. We have a growing collection of soundtrack material to choose from, ranging from our first ever recording session through to the latest pieces, and will be putting some short selections up on The Lunacy Board website. The first piece is already there, a 2 minute piece of improvised instrumental music reminiscent of Meddle-era Pink Floyd.

Finally, for the moment, we also have a dedicated forum area over at Melos’ Prog Bazaar, so drop in any time and let us know what you think about the band, the music, the weather or anything else.

Podcastability

 Music  Comments Off
Mar 052006
 

I like podcasting. I have a cheap and cheerful little mp3 player which I take with me whenever I travel. It only holds about 2 CDs’ worth of music at once, but it is near indestructible and runs for hours on a single battery. I always have a few bits of whatever music I’m currently listening to along with the latest episode of ‘Spellbound’, which is a podcast radio show dedicated to theremin music.

A range of what is known as ‘pod-safe’ music is available now for people running podcast shows. This is music which the artist has allowed to be downloaded freely for inclusion in podcasts, the aim being to keep podcasts financially viable to all and enable artists to spread their music to new audiences.

Seems like a good idea to me, so if you are a podcaster and would like to include some Deserters or Mick Bordet music on your show, pop over to the Podsafe Music Network to see what I’ve made available. All I’d ask is that you let me know if you’re including any of our music, so that we can link to your podcast from here.

Spellbound Radio podsafe music network