Just a quick blog-ette regarding the status of my upcoming album ‘NYX‘. Work is progressing well and I hope to be able to release this album in early July.
‘NYX’ has something of a ‘hypnotic’ theme and utilises subtle ‘pulsing’ and spatial elements to that end. In some ways it is a return to my first album ‘Tolmon’ in terms of production – a markedly ‘softer’ tonal palette being employed (in comparison to my recent albums). It will be a long-form work and may well run to a double album in terms of duration.

I won’t be blogging any more about this album until it’s ready for imminent release. So have no fear, there won’t be a rash of spurious postings regarding ‘NYX’.

‘Inspiration’ is a term usually used in an almost exclusively positive manner regarding creative endeavour. My inspirations differ somewhat in that I find that inspiration can be both positive and negative – not all inspiration has to be purely ‘positive’. In fact, I feel deciding what you don’t want to do artistically is pretty fundamental to the work you create. Killing Joke (one of my favourite bands) have a fantastic intro to their song ‘The Beautiful Dead’:

“You are an inspiration to me, You are my inspiration of how not to be, You are my inspiration to achieve a better way of life”

I find that to be very inspiring. I’m rather sceptical about a lot of so-called ‘inspirational’ things (‘spiritual’ texts in particular !). There seems to be a great rush to effuse and express positively uplifting thoughts about such things and that’s not for me. On this ‘negative’ note, regarding music, I find that there are times when pretty much all music sounds ‘flat’ and it doesn’t do anything for me (this applies to my own material as well), thankfully this is usually a short lived phase. When I’m not feeling inspired with my ambient musical, I look more to photography and my guitar playing as creative outlets. I’m very fortunate in that I don’t hit the ‘block’ very often or for very long and I’m able to carry on.

On the ‘positive’ side of things, my primary source of inspiration comes from my observations of the natural world. I’m frequently floored by the beauty and complexity of nature. It humbles me – and I’m not a very humble chap ! Regarding music, at times listening to great work does indeed inspire me to try to achieve better work and this is a great form of inspiration in itself. Realising that other artists do much better at certain things than I can ever do is inspirational in it’s own way too.

On another note, inspiration can run out. Whilst it is the necessary impetus (in a lot of cases) to get started on something, ‘application’ kicks in when the initial inspiration has passed. Regarding my ambient work, I can carry on (on autopilot, as it were ?) when it doesn’t seem to be going particularly well and I sometimes wonder if this is a bad thing, or simply the proficiency that comes with creating work over a fairly long period of time ? Maybe the old adage still holds – 1% inspiration / 99% perspiration ?

‘The irresistible force met the immovable object’ – now that inspires me !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox

I recently found a wooded area close to where I live that I hadn’t known about before. I’ve been walking around it recently, it’s surprisingly extensive and quite special. I’m not much of a one for travelling, but I actively explore around where I live (micro-exploration ?) and have found some hidden gems of places, this wood being one of them. I’m certainly looking forward to the ‘spring greens’ soonest – I love to see nature’s greenery.

Here’s some images from this place, they aren’t very spectacular, but representative of how it is before spring  really arrives:

My upcoming album ‘NYX‘ is currently in progress after resolving some technical issues I’ve had (which I won’t bore people with), a mid-summer release is still on the cards. More details to follow nearer the time.

Something I’ve returned to in these musings is the importance of the ‘slow’ in ambient music (and in the wider world). For me, in the increasingly frenetic world most of us inhabit, ‘slow’ things are much undervalued and it’s certainly a rare quality to find in music. I’m fortunate at present to be able to adopt a ‘slow’ approach to creating my ambient music.

One of the advantages about being an independent artist is that you can release when you want – there’s no record company dictating that your third album this year is due to be released ! I can take as long as I think it takes to create an album and in the process of creating an album, there are a sequence of stages that I adhere to. Repeated reworkings and listenings are undertaken, which I repeat a number of times until I get to the mastering stage. Regarding the listening stages, I try to listen to the work-in-progress material in different places and times of the day in order to get a different perspective on how it’s developing. I find that conscious and unconscious observations occur and some subsequent responses and ideas are developed over time. The part of me that is creating the music hears the material, makes mental notes and responds either immediately (by making listening notes) or later, by ideas formulating themselves over time. This adds to the music I feel, in that it’s development is the result of a ‘refining’ period over time.

I’m currently working on an upcoming release and the above ‘slow cooking recipe’ is applying to it’s progression, as has been the case for my previous works.

Regarding the ‘slow’, I make no secret about the fact that a fair amount of my material employs time-stretching – slowing sounds down (usually by 200%, but sometimes much more). By doing this, new ‘facets’ of the original sound can be revealed as the whole spectrum of the sound is shifted downwards and it becomes lower pitched and longer in duration. The whole slowing down process effectively makes the sounds ‘more ambient’. This technique is as old as the hills, but is still very useful for creating drone type sounds. This is just a starting point for me and further processing and other manipulations are usually later employed, but it’s something I do a lot. In fact, I used to do it years ago when I was using a 4-track machine and it’s still applies in the ‘digital studio’.

More slow – slower !

I have another recording alias which has been ongoing for almost as long as I’ve been releasing my ambient material. ‘Formbank’ is my quirky electronica side-project. The Formbank thing is a commercial failure, but I see it as an artistic success, in that it allows me to experiment, to learn things and push myself artistically. I’ve learnt a lot about composition, the use of instrumentation and mastering from this project, which feeds into the Igneous stuff.

Reading some reviews, I’ve been described as a ‘master’ of drone textures and the like. While that’s flattering, I’m far from ‘masterful’ at some other aspects of music making. Ambient music can be very easy to create – not so with electronica. Beat-making, song construction and production skills are some of the things that I need to become more adept at and the Formbank thing has pushed me on in this endeavour. I feel it’s important to do new things, rather than repeat the things that come easy. I think that trying to do things that don’t come easy / naturally can be challenging in a positive way. For example, when I was learning the guitar many moons ago, I felt I should learn how to improvise on the guitar in all keys. This certainly turned out to be pretty essential when I started jamming with other musicians. If I’d just stuck to A, E and D (heavy rock background), I would have been a bit stuck !

I’ve released three Formbank albums, all a bit crazy and decidedly uncommercial. They took as long as any Igneous album, which is the primary reason why the project is currently ‘on hold’. ‘Formbank‘, ‘Formbank 2‘ (such title imagination !), ‘Orca’  and ‘Jazz-electric‘ (collaborative). The best place to check them out is here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/Formbank

Brief Selection of Tracks:

I’ve also done a number of Remixes under the Formbank alias – Mrs Jynx, Saul Stokes, The Horn The Hunt etc. I’ve entered a few competitions (for the experience, primarily) and lastly but not leastly, co-created the collaborative ‘Jazz-electric‘ album with Achromus. I find doing remixes are a great way to fire the imagination and learn (songwriting techniques, primarily) from people who know more about that craft than I do. It goes without saying that I do these remixes for the musical enjoyment as well.

I’ve used FLStudio to create the material throughout the Formbank project and have seen many improvements in the program. I’m now using it for my ambient material too, as it can now deal with primarily audio based tracks almost as well as sequenced based pieces. I think there’s something to be said for sticking with a particular core program.

I also do my Youtube guitar video thing for fun really. I wanted to make some videos that sounded and looked half decent, as a lot of guitar videos on the tube are neither ! It’s not a ‘popular’ channel by any means, so I feel I can do what I like, mostly as some kind of documentation of what I was doing with the guitar at the time. They’re just live takes with minimal editing, to show some techniques and sounds created with my current computer recording setup.

I’ve recently uploaded four new videos up on to my Youtube ‘guitar channel’. They are there just to show some techniques that I hadn’t done anything with before, regarding the video stuff. The playing itself is just ‘noodling’ really, but it’s becoming more fluent ‘noodling’, as I’ve been playing for a while almost every day for a few months now.

Currently I play the guitar for fun really, it’s a world away from my ambient work, but I enjoy playing a ‘real’ instrument. It’s quite ‘grounding’ after all the computer music work I do. I think it’s good for the mind as well – engaging with the ‘abstract’ (if that’s what it is), nature of improvisation.

Using Pitcher with tremolo arm.
Using the ‘Pitcher’ pitch correction plugin, in FLStudio. Shades of the infamous ‘T-pain’ sound, but hopefully in a more unusual manner. Pitcher’s tuning is a bit ropey in places, but I guess that’s because I’m using it in a way that it wasn’t intended:

Pitcher and Slide Guitar:
Something a bit more restrained. Pitcher ‘fills in’ the notes when the slide is used and my less-than-pristine slide technique (regarding intonation) is covered up pretty nicely too !

ADT effect:
ADT type effect using the ‘GSnap’ pitch correction plugin.
http://www.gvst.co.uk/gsnap.htm Has an interesting effect particularly with vibrato. You have to set the dry / effect level to roughly 50% for this to work.  Note ‘wrong note’ (note outside the pre-defined scale) at 0:57 !

Fake Speed Guitar:
Lastly, here’s some ‘fake-speed-guitar’ with Pitcher and the Slide.
Just for a bit of fun…

I plan to release two albums in 2013, the work is currently in progress and a lot has been done already to get to the point of deciding what to release this year. I have a large pool of work-in-progress material that I’ve selected from and the process of auditioning material that might fit together and making rough initial mixes took some time . Release dates are still too nebulous to refer to, but I hope to get a least one finished before the Summer of this year (I try to look towards the seasons for release times, as opposed to specific dates). The working titles and brief descriptions of the albums are as follows:

‘NYX’ – a ‘hypnotic’ album. I decided to title this one ‘NYX’, as Nyx is the mother of the God of sleep ‘Hypnos’, I felt it was appropriate descriptor for the ‘tone’ of the material that will be on this album. There’s a wonderfully evocative description of the Greek Goddess Nyx on Wikipedia:

“She is found in the shadows of the world and only ever seen in glimpses.”

‘IRIS’ – a tonal, ‘instrument-based’ album. (in terms of the sound sources I’ve chosen to work with) ‘IRIS’ will probably will run to a long-form / ‘double-album’ duration.

Of course, things may change depending on how the work develops (‘IRIS’ was intended to be released last year !), but this is what I’m working towards. As ever, I will be employing new (to me) techniques and processes in the attempt to explore sonic pastures anew.  As an ambient composer, I still have a lot I want to achieve.

Part of my ‘out and about’ ongoing mini-project. The ‘Hippy Van’ shots were taken of an old (‘A’ reg) van that has been abandoned in a field near to where I live (out in the wilds). I found the paintings on the inside to be fascinating. I’d love to know the story behind the vehicle and it’s owners and why it was left in a remote field. The equally abandoned television by the van set up an interesting context thing too.

I’ve uploaded all my solo albums up on to my Bandcamp site.
My primary reason for doing this is to make them available in FLAC format. In case you weren’t aware of this, FLAC is a lossless audio format, ensuring that the original audio quality of the releases is preserved. Almost all of my albums are now sold out as CD-Rs, so the original wav files aren’t available anymore. So, for those who would like the best audio quality downloads (and exclusive high resolution artwork included), here’s the place to go:

http://igneousflame.bandcamp.com/

Of course, Bandcamp makes the releases available as the highest quality mp3s too. I’m becoming quite a fan of the site and what they do !

This January, I’ve been releasing my ambient music under my Igneous Flame moniker for 10 years. This is quite a milestone for me, even though I’m aware it is dwarfed by the longevity of much more established artists, it still means a lot to me. I initially released my material on ‘Chillfactor 10 records’ (not my choice of name !) in 2003 and when that label folded, I set up my own LuminaSounds imprint in 2008. During this 10 year period, I released 11 solo albums and 24 albums in total.

Around 2003, I read some overly optimistic ‘career’ articles for musicians about having 5 year and 10 year plans, I decided that they were far too idealistic and my plan was to simply carry on creating and releasing ! I’ve still got a lot I want to do and over time, more refinement will (hopefully !) come into the work. I hope to be able to carry on creating my work as I am currently doing so in the future.

My current discography (solo and collaborative) is as follows:

Release dates:

OSMOTIC CF10-01 13/1/3 – (CF = Chillfactor 10 records) Sampler release
TOLMON CF10-02 13/1/3 – My first ambient release !
INTOX CF10-03 5/8/3
FORMBANK CF10-04 5/8/3 My (currently dormant) ‘electronica’ side-project first release
OCULLA CF10-05 19/12/3 – Surround sound DTS compilation, very unusual , if not unique !
OXANA CF10-06 25/2/4
8 SHADES OF SOUND CF10-07 13/8/4 – Collaboration with Female vocalist, Mary Whitaker
FORMBANK2 CF10-08 8/2/5
BINAURAL SOUNDTRACKS 2005 (download only release)
SATU CF10-09 August/September ‘05
ASTRA CF10-10 October ‘06
HYDRA CF10-11 May ‘07
ORCA (download only release) (CF10-12) November ‘07 – Formbank release
FLICKER (Igneous Flame/Achromus) (LS-01) August ‘08 – Collaboration with Michael Stringer AKA ‘Achromus’
HALO (Igneous Flame/Achromus) (AW2026) August ‘08 – Collaboration with Michael Stringer AKA ‘Achromus’
ELECTRA (LS-02) 7/7/09
HARMONIUM (Igneous Flame/Disturbed Earth) (LS-03) 7/7/09 – Collaboration with Dean Richards AKA ‘Disturbed Earth’
ION (DVD-ROM and download release) (LS-04) 1/10/10
ORCUS (DVD-ROM and download release) (LS-05) 1/10/10
JAZZ-ELECTRIC (download only release) (JE-01) 1/3/11 – Collaboration with Michael Stringer AKA ‘Achromus’ (electronica)
LYRA (Double album) (LS-06) 11/11/11
PANDORA (download only release) (LS-07) 1/8/12 – Collaboration with Rudy Ensueno AKA ‘Ensueno’
HARMONY THROUGH CONFLICT (download only release) (LS-08) 31/12/12

(See my Discogs page for more information: http://www.discogs.com/artist/Igneous+Flame )

To mark my first 10 years, I’m giving away my 2005 ‘Binaural Soundtracks‘ release (as 320 kbps mp3s). This release was a compilation of tracks that I created for use as soundtracks in art installations, which were exhibited when I lived in Leeds. It was originally released as a download only on Shopsonic records. It’s something of a departure from my strictly ambient material, and was released under my real name. I hope people find it interesting nonetheless. It’s intended for headphone listening. (The track ‘Portal’ was a collaboration with installation artist Sarah Saunders)

(Image taken with a Canon G6, near Hunt Cliff, Saltburn, North-east UK)

Dropbox download link (67.9 MB zip file):

http://db.tt/Yih70M83