Yesterday was a busy day for album releases – two albums that I’m on were released!
It’s always exciting to be involved in new music, and fun to have more stuff for y’all to listen to, doubly so when they all arrive at once (I’ve got 3 more albums to release before the end of the year!) But anyway…
So, the first of them is this one from Neil Alexander and I, called Hidden Windows:
This was recorded in 2010, when Neil and I did two shows together in NY – it was the first time we’d met, though I’d been a fan of his music for a long time (that’s Neil in the pic at the top, stood next to a mural of himself in Newburgh – how many of you have made such an impact on your own town that they included you in a mural? No, me neither…). Anyway, the gigs were streamed (and the online audience dwarfed the small-but-perfectly-formed gaggle of good people in attendance), and I was recording them. Sadly, I was still getting to grips with recording on my netbook, and about half the gig was lost to glitchy audio. But two lovely bits of music were saved – the first was A Meeting Of Minds which is on Live So Far. And this, Hidden Windows, is the second. A single 30 minute journey through myriad musical landscapes. Enjoy!
The second of the new albums is from my friend Steve Uccello, and is called Fire Times:
This was a very different kind of recording experience. Steve had written the melody for Magpie Bridge – the centrepiece of the album – and asked me to record it in the studio with him and drummer Mike Shannon. Pretty much everything I’ve done of late has been open/improvised, so it was both a challenge and a lovely change of pace to get to play such a beautifully written melody, followed by a solo over Steve’s lovely chord progression too. I was then able to put down some other bits of mellow ambient stuff, and I really like how it all came out. Steve and I first connected on Myspace, many years ago, so it’s a real privilege to play on his lovely music.
I hope you enjoy both records – they’re both ‘Pay What You Think It’s Worth’ so please feel free to listen a few times, as many as you need to get some kind of assessment of what it’s worth for you. if you’re in the habit of just paying iTunes prices for things, feel free to do that too… Steve Uccello is donating half the profits from Fire Times to The Food Bank Of Monterrey County – and Neil is currently embarking on a costly and risky tour of his exquisite piano arrangement of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring to mark its 100th anniversary. So give these guys a nice surprise, please 🙂
On twitter they are @nailmusic and @steveuccello – do go and say hi.