END OF YEAR

Just real quick to say thanks for all the nice Jilk related stuff.

We done a lot of gigs of the recent times and they've been ace...the live thing is getting exciting. 

The album is finished(ish) and should come out next year...just working out the best way to put it out. I've seen the artwork and its ace - the music is ok too ;-)

Thanks for all the Carry On eps that got purchased this year and for all the techno heart EPs that got downloaded. Thanks to Bristol promoters (kit, birdcage, drawn, Fear of fiction) bit-p (coppe, leigh) and Jilk mates for doing recording and live helpz

Cags
Neil
Paul
Helen
Robbie
Hev
Terry
Luke
Ben Capp
Ben Bird

In the end I couldn;t think of an album of the year  - its stupid. But it was either The Swans, Grizzly Bear, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Portico Quartet, Frank Ocean, Grimes or something I've forgotten about. 

Music's nice innit:

GIGS AND ALBUMS YOU LIKE

Gigs and albums

We're playing the wonderful Birdcage on Saturday 20th October - get there early to catch the awesome support Rich Clarke

INFO HERE: https://www.facebook.com/events/371416912934393/?ref=ts&fref=ts

We're also playing this wicked gig at The Croft on November 21st

INFO HERE: http://www.the-croft.com/whats-on/eventdetails/21-nov-12-solarference-the-croft/

You also need to have these albums in your life -

http://boomkat.com/cds/578344-godspeed-you-black-emperor-allelujah-don-t-bend-ascend

http://boomkat.com/downloads/565260-swans-the-seer

Preferably on Vinyl - preferably as loud as you bloody can. The Swans album especially is a shitting force of nature - I've never heard anything like it, yet I recognise all of its composite elements, if that makes sense?

I think I've heard this kind of music done very badly before. It made me think about what it was in this album that made it so effective?

I think that even across relatively experimental tracks that lasts 30+mins there is intelligent, interesting and engaging song writing and there is naturally the opposite. In other words - Swans are fucking great at what they do - and what they do happens to sound like Cormac McCarthy orchestrating some punk chaos engine while the world collapses. ITS NOT PRETENTIOUS, ITS JUST HOW I FEEL.

Its 2 hours long - but you need to sit through it in one go…it will own you.

BIT POD EP 7

So every month Bit-P do a podcast - and I am lucky enough to put it together. This basically means making an ace mix tape of all the stuff I like at that time and finding one or two guests to put a mix together for us.

I basics get to listen to wicked music lots and talk in between the wicked music. check out the difference in mic set up in some of my talky bits - cus I recorded it on two separate days and one of the days got a much better sound on the mic...see if you can guess which bits and let me knowonapostcard and I'll give you a free Jilk song that no one else has got on CD

also here is the bitpod > http://snd.sc/RoHv4A 

Tour Dates

TOUR DATES FOR THIS YEAR MAYBE NOT COMPLETE LIST AND STUFF MIGHT CHANGE BUT LETS GO WITH THIS YEAH>

17th of August - Grain Barge Bristol
22nd September - Start The Bus Bristol Brisfest After Party (with Hidden Orchestra)
27th September - Grain Barge Bristol (Bit Phalanx Coppe Tour)
4th October - Mr Wolves Bristol (with Drawn Recordings and another awesome Orchestra)
6th October - Ginglik, Shepherds Bush London (Bit Phalanx Coppe Tour)
7th October-  The Marlborough Theatre Brighton (Bit Phalanx Coppe Tour)

Redundancy

In the year since I was made redundant I have done the following instead of going to an office for 7 hours a day 5 days a week -

Worked in a pub (never done it before)
Worked on several festivals as manual laborer or seeing if people are eligible to get back into Glastonbury after having lost a ticket.
Filled 100 sand bags with sand
Helped out a fair trade coffee stand I used to work for
Cleaned a music management office once a week for 20pounds a go while listening to loads of ace music
Listened to loads of ace music
Done a monthly podcast with people I used to buy cds of
Worked at a sustainable logging yard, helping prepare trees for cutting (I've used several power tools I've never even touched before)
Released an EP
Written an album
Played loads of gigs
Been involved in a tour
Doing another tour in a month or so
Made music for a computer game
Done some naughty naked things with a lovely girl
Made music for UCAS corporate videos
Sound design for a piece of theater in London
Met and spoken with lots of friends during the week, when no one else is around
Enjoyed the sun when no one else is around
Appreciated that happiness in life can come from just talking to people and success isn't something you have to measure in terms of career - although that's cool as well
Drank lots of coffee and written bollocks on my MAC like a wanker
Done some drawing
Seen a wicked tree
Gone for walks
Cooked things I haven't cooked before.

I'm not saying that everyone should quit their job - I'm just saying

Rage Against The Machine

I recently put the first rage against the machine album on my mp3 player…no particular motivation - just hadn't heard it in a while.

This album is so bloody good, and they were only like 16 when they made it.
Every riff on there is so phat and huge it makes me so pumped
I'm getting pumped writing about it now
All the music is ace all the time
..and they were like 16 when they wrote it
AND Maynard from Tool sings on Know Your Enemy…go listen to Know Your Enemy right now and if you don't get super pumped by everything that's happening in that song, you are a wrong person.

AND THEY WERE LIKE 16 WHEN THEY MADE IT.

I love it.

Forss is an electronic musician from Sweden. He has recently released an album and app for ipad/iphone based round 'church music'.

You can read an interesting article about it here:

http://thequietus.com/articles/09085-forss-ecclesia-interview

And buy the album/app here:

http://forssmusic.com/dictum

Its wonderful stuff - a little like if Burial had been made to join a church choir at a young age (who's to say he wasn't). It also threw up some interesting points for me. In the quietus interview above Forss (Eric Wahlforss) claims that he is not religious but has since child hood had a connection to the church and holds a deep seated love for 'church music'.

The concept of not being explicitly religious but feeling attached to such an important element of worship is one that resonates with me. I was bought up with a strong but liberal religious influence - both my parents work in the church and are ordained. From a relatively early age I was encouraged to make my own decisions about the church and religion. Today I would not call myself a Christian but I have a theological hunger and a willingness and openness to thinking about God.

I completely understand where Forss is coming from in terms of the atmosphere of a religious building. Architecturally they are stunning and hold a unique peace . On the odd occasion that I look round a city cathedral I am very happy to simple just be in the space. Many of the beats on Forss' album are made from the physicality of a church - stones, wood etc. Capturing this atmosphere by literally playing the church is a fantastic approach.

I find this artistic connection to the physicality, feeling and music of the church fascinating and in turn, it highlights for me a worrying trend in how the modern media encourages us to view the Church. Many feel we are living in a post religion age - the rise of western atheism in the 21st century has been unstoppable and difficult to ignore - in Britians secular society it is difficult to feel that it has not become the norm. I would worry that there is a very real danger that this momentum will mean throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Although we seem, in some areas, to have developed a healthy cynicism about the media - religion and the church appear to not have been granted this same pinch of salt. In short, the over simplistic and heavily socio-political element of the Church comes under easy fire and scorn from both media and consumers of media. The danger here is that a false dichotomy is created between dogma and spirituality - this is certainly a trap that Dawkins falls into. He attacks a child like and overtly dogmatic notion of a deity, and with his attack conveniently eradicates all spirituality. As though the entire church is founded on fundamentalism and unmoving, dogmatic thinking. This is certainly not my experience of a large amount of religious people I have met - both Christian and other.

I am being overly general and to a degree playing devils advocate but on an empirical level I have witnessed this dismissive attitude in a lot of my friends - usually accompanied by a sharp and acidic cynicism about anything religious. This is not an article defending religion - nor am I about to lower myself to Dawkins' level of theology (his God, of course does not exist, it is the God of a child like thought and comes from a man with a deeply distorted sense of spirituality). What the Forss album highlights for me is the potential for a redefined relationship with the Church though art, in which God is not a bearded interventionist in the sky but a relational projection of ourselves that we must aspire to in order to spiritually grow. There is value in Theology and the deeply personal and emotional basis for Forss' work seems to be one way in which we can enter into a dialogue with the Church and spirituality in a  healthy and open way.

[BHR01] Hymns: Volume One

Check out this awesome compilation from Black Hymn Records that I donated a remix of Pawed Into for. Its ace and they're lovely guys and its FREE AWESOME MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!

http://blackhymnrecords.bandcamp.com/download?enc=mp3-320&id=317719355&ts=1339496649.4055161621&tsig=938ab4aa67a6056efa66413e221a2fa0&type=album

Lets get physical

This is a blog based on an article I saw on Channel 5's 'The Wright Stuff' (the soft spot I have for this show is a cause of deep shame).

A few days back digital sales of music surpassed physical sales and the Wright Stuff did an article on whether those growing up within the digital era will lose something by not owning music on physical formats.

Its difficult for me not to be biased.  -  At this very moment I"m trying to sell enough physical copies of my EP to break even and pay back a very generous friend who fronted the money for the production run. Of course, from this perspective, I agree that music should be purchased on in physical formats. However, - the physical edition of Carry On! was not something I or Bit-Phalanx had to do. It was something we chose to do knowing we'd probably only just break even….eventually.

We did this because we grew up with physical music and understand the importance of holding a tangible object in our hands: - the embodiment of a finished process or journey, complete with art work, sleeve design, notes and CD.

As someone on The Wright Stuff panel pointed out, - you can include almost all of the above in a digital release. This is true; However I'd much rather look at a painting in a  gallery than an online photo of a painting. - The principle here is much the same. We now as a culture spend so much of our time looking at screens, and for me personally, there is a very real sense that this increased time with  screens has devalued a lot of what I absorb in art, culture etc.

If I make the effort to walk to my local independent record store and purchase a  CD or vinyl I'll be much more inclined to spend time with the physical object and absorb the art work the artist has chosen, think how it relates to the music and what might have informed the artists choices. I'll read the notes and see who played on the album, see who collaborated with the artist and how much this gives me an insight into how the artist was working. In short I will engage with the product as a whole thus developing a much richer and deeper relationship with the art. To just hear the music is not to absorb the entire experience - its a little like trying to understand a film with the just the sound track as a reference.

This extends to how I listen to the music as well. - If I download an album (which I do) then it will often sit in my iTunes or on my mp3 player only getting one or two complete plays before being consigned to the lottery of shuffle play. (There is a pleasure in discovering tracks through shuffle play and this inadvertently opening an album up, but that's a small aside). If I physically purchase the same album I will take the time to sit down with the record and listen to it from start to finish as the artist (hopefully) intended (there is an argument that the album format is dead and no longer valued by artists - I would wholly disagree with this). Again this leads to a richer understanding of the finished product.  - By physically purchasing music I gain an in-depth, fuller enjoyment of a wider variety of music.

An important element of my preference for physical releases is that I've spent money on the CD or vinyl, and so I owe it to my bank balance to try and enjoy what I've purchased. Having said that when I digitally purchase music it still does not receive the same level of attention as a physical copy. Buying a physical copy of something feels more 'satisfying' in terms of supporting an artist especially if it is direct from the artist at a gig or live event. There is perhaps another wider argument here around digital sales and physical sales - I'm aware that systems like Spotify do not work for mid-level and smaller independent artists and labels. I'm also aware however that I have a certain level of naivety and a distinct lack of research in this area but I think this highlights an important point about financially supporting artists in the most effective way - again, I am biased - but in a culture deeply reliant on economy and commerce I have no issue with paying money to artists as a sign of respect for the time, energy and emotion that has gone into their work and as a way of facilitating the continuation of that work.

I recently acquired some vinyl decks as a Christmas present from a friend - she was moving to London and had no room for them so let me keep them as a permanent loan. Vinyl is beautiful. It is warmer sounding (the physical process of needle on wax vinyl has a wider frequency range than the digital reproduction of music) and is a great object to handle. The art work is larger and there something ceremonial about the increased delicacy of handling vinyl, removing the sleeve and placing the needle on the record. Although vinyl has, to an extent, financially ruined me, - it has also served to reinforce completely my feelings around owning music physically.

It is a slightly ridiculous statement but I definitely own the vinyl in my room - no hard drive crash or corruption will take this away from me. I have to find the time to go to my room and listen to the records I bought directly from another person. I love the music I hear all the more so for those reasons. There is a distance created when music is owned digitally; perhaps a symptom of the general unreality associated with digital phenomenon. This can extend to how we communicate with, view and absorb people as well as art. This distance can only serve to devalue what has been produced - it makes it disposable and it speeds up our consumption of it.

The convenience  of digital music clearly suits a lot people but in this case and with almost all things in life, it is important to maintain a balance in order to preserve that which is of value. An entirely digital collection is a poor, fragile reflection of a completely physical collection.

This is not an argument against digital music. As I previously stated I download and purchase music digitally. Yet it is a worrying prediction of the direction that purchased musical culture is moving in. Our continuous technological advancement is powerful and fast - and sometimes risks forgetting what we've learned and gained from our current progress.

Carry On! is still available both digitally and physically from www.bit-phalanx.com
I (and my generous friend) would recommend the physical version ;-) x

For to do chat so you look?

This is a picture of a cat. Cats are nice. This one is yellow. It lives in Bristol. My girlfriend took the picture. She likes taking lots of pictures. Some of them are quite good.

This blog will be about more in the future I imagine.

Jilk x