Death of an Aura EP
Hi! Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed 
to stay informed with Ochre news and music. Thanks.
Six tracks, released on the ninth of June, on Benbecula Records. All Minerals subscribers will receive this limited Digipak CD EP; non-subscribers will be able to purchase the EP from their preferred download store in mp3 and FLAC formats.
Tags: death of an aura, minerals
ShareThis
Leave a Reply
April 26th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Can’t wait.
April 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Neither can I.
Hope you enjoy it.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Hot sex!
April 26th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
wait a tick, will we still be able to buy this in CD format as well as downloading it?
April 26th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Hi Aaron—It was originally going to be a download-only taster of my next album, but Benbecula decided to make it also available on CD, as a bonus, to Minerals subscribers. As far as I know, the only way you’ll be able to get it on CD is to become a Minerals subscriber before the release date.
However, it will also be available from Bleep in FLAC format, so there will still be lossless options available.
April 27th, 2008 at 6:59 am
You mean there’s new material and I have to wait over a month to get it? You are too cruel!
I like the cover art. Can’t wait to hear the tunes.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:08 am
This is great news! I hope to hear some live instruments ’cause harp, violin and all were a brilliant complement in your music.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Thanks Kowarisuki! Yep, it is a little more acoustic-oriented than my last releases, you’ll be happy to hear, partly through my collaboration with the talented Benet Walsh, and partly through my own need to get away from the computer and soft-synths a bit more.
Glad you like the artwork, Andrew—thanks! It’s the first sleeve I’ve designed myself (hopefully that’s not too obvious
).
May 1st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
But please don’t go too far from electronica.
Your music is unique because you know where bounds of instrumental music are. And “Circadies” and “Beneath Fleeting Visions” so far are clipper of electronic-acoustic mixture to me. Cheers, Chris.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Look forward to this one Chris, cover art is nice too!
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Kowarisuki—I’d say then that this EP is more on the acoustic side of things. (Think ‘Bluebottles’.) Lots of home sampling and instrument recordings.
Then the album will address the balance with more electronic/synth-based tracks.
Really digging into my synths at the moment, as I never had the chance to get into the hardware side of things with the majority of Lemodie.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Glad to hear that, Chris. And I hope your next album will be widely available on the shelves of music stores than previous ones which unfortunately I couldn’t find at all.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Well, to be honest it probably won’t be any more physically widely available than Lemodie, especially as independent stores and distributors are feeling the squeeze, given the apparently plummeting value of recorded music.
Chances are you’ll still have to rely on mail order—we shall see.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:01 am
As a fairly regular visitor to your site, imagine my delight when 3 pieces of fantastic news come along at once! Great to hear you have new material (EP, Album) in the works, Chris, and I wouldn’t miss the Benebecula Showcase for anything. You can count on my support for all three.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
“(Think ‘Bluebottles’.)”
*Melts*
Bluebottles is one of my favorite tracks of yours, and thats hard to say because i have several favorites!!
Do i remember hearing something about vocals in some comments awhile back? if so, are the vocals going to come in the form of lyrics? Chanting perhaps?
Is it to early to ask how subtly the idea of vocals is being woven into your next album and/or EP?
May 8th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Chris H—thanks!
Yep, it should be a great night.
Aaron—the vocals feature in varying amounts, mostly background, occasionally forefront, humming, ahh-ing, singing nonsense, nice harmonies. Hopefully it’ll work and make the tracks a littler richer, complementing the synths—that’s the plan anyway. It’s still very much electronica, this time with a pinch of vocals.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Oh My God !!
When I read this message, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Is there any chance of getting just a sample of your work from this album ?! Please, don’t keep us waiting…
May 9th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Ditto… even a 30 second clip I can listen to on repeat for hours on end would be good enough for me.
Then again, maybe it’d best you keep us waiting!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Sorry guys, but I must hold fast with my decision not to release any previews.
However, no one else will hear the release before you—even promo copies won’t be sent out until after June 9th. (Hang on—June 9th is a BoC track isn’t it?) As there will be no promotion until after release, I’d appreciate any help spreading the word around forums or communities you participate in.
Also, let me qualify my comments about the vocals, in case it’s starting to sound like I’m releasing something along the lines of Bohemian Rhapsody! Three of the tracks feature vocals, one more prominently than the other two. It’s not a radical departure from my usual sound, more a slight prodding of the envelope in a new direction.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Sounds lovely!
May 12th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Me and some of people who I share my musical taste with think vocal in electronic music is great as long as it’s either a background or it hasn’t started to speak deliberately (e.g. rap). It would be great to hear your experiments in this vein.
“Open Top” is thought-out track although AFAIK it was your 1st experience with attaching vocal to the music. I think your subsequent work will use vocal even more skilfully. In this regard Arovane “Passage to Nagoya” and FSOL “My Kingdom” were near “Open Top.”
Sorry if you think I compare, I don’t. I know musicians don’t like their music to be compared with others’ so I’m just trying to remember good examples and familiarize you with opinion of your listeners at the other part of the world, that’s all.
May 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am
‘However, no one else will hear the release before you’ - wrong!
As a composer you’ve already heared all of the tracks, haven’t you ?!
May 20th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
That I have, but only as individual tracks and elements, slowly being woven together; I can’t respond to my own music as I might to someone else’s, so in a way my statement could still stand—you’ll be able to hear the music for the first time in its entirety! Though I’d have to conveniently forget about the mastering engineer for a moment for that to be completely true, I guess…
Kowarisuki—sure, I don’t mind the comparisons at all (I love those tunes). I know I’m not going to be able to appease the expectations of everyone with the added vocal elements; some folks have always preferred the more electronic AMND side of things, others the more classically-affected Lemodie side. I just hope I get the balance right to have something in there that everyone can enjoy.
Not long now anyway—under three weeks.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:55 am
ultimately, it doesnt matter what i want your new music to be. in my mind, if the artist likes it, thats all that matters. the more geniune the better!
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Can’t wait for this EP, hope it’s even better then your previous work! The cover looks promising.
A but off-topic. I own Lemodie and AMND and they’re very solid releases. I always wondered if the song ‘111′ is a wink to Autechre?
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hi Tom—thanks!
About 111—nope, nothing to do with Autechre.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Hello Chris,
since I have an occasion, I wanted to ask another off-topic question.
I am so very addicted to the ‘OPEN TOP’ track of yours, and i always wanted to know, what do the electronic voices sing/say in this song.
These are particular words… something about ‘destruction’ etc.
Would be very glad if you could help me
Where are these voices from anyway ?!
Thanks in advance
P.S.
Counting minutes to the newest release, and also gave a note on my wordpress
Cheers
May 30th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Hello—I mentioned the origins of the Open Top samples in this thread on watmm. Should answer all your questions.
I don’t have any transcriptions of the samples any more though (got them on the BBC website originally, I think).
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:52 am
Thanks very much
That solved my problem
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Well done Mr Ochre, always love youre work, cant wait to purchase a copy!
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
Really look forward to listen to it Chris, well done again.:)
By the way, i can’t open benbecula’s website. Is something wrong?
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Hi Yollar, venuscode—thanks very much.
Benbecula’s site seems okay at the moment; I do know they’re thinking about changing bits of the site though, so perhaps you caught them mid-tweak.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
One more question; So you say this is a “taster” for the new album, does that mean these tracks will be on the new album as well, or are they some other related tracks that you had around?
June 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Hi Aaron—some of the tracks will be present on the album, yes, though I may make one or two alterations to the tracks before they appear on CD (for example, I’ve already made a couple of tweaks to Napoli, albeit very subtly).
June 7th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[...] you will notice a certain electronica musician amongst its ranks. He has a download ep coming out tomorrow and it is, if I may say so, very good. So, if you’re a fan of music that combines catchy [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I assume the digital download option will be available soon? I just checked out a few and they didnt have it yet.
oh the anticipation!
June 8th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Should be out within 24 hours, although I don’t know when Bleep etc. will actually make the files available for purchase—ideally it’d be at the stroke of midnight, but I’m sure it’ll probably be more like 4pm GMT or something.
Needless to say, I’ll post an update as soon as I notice its availability.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Can’t wait, can’t wait… Can’t wait! xD
Vite, vite M. Bleep!
June 9th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Argghh!! I was counting down the hours till release, only to find it’s not available for download yet! I’m practically salivating here…
June 9th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I know, it’s frustrating—it’s up to each download service to decide when they’re going to add DoaA. Just hope we’re only going to have to wait hours rather than days!
June 9th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Hope so either!
If I don’t have my FLACs today, errr… I invade england!
Maybe you’ll see a horde of fans coming at your home to borrow the master. I’de be among them.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
(your biggest fan alive from GREECE),just cheked Bleep & I Tunes, seems the new EP isn’t avalaible yet,do something chris,can’t wait any longer man,this is turning to a obsession
June 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
/me is buying an eurostar ticket…
June 9th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
HAHAHAHA! Calm down people! its just music!
Looks like the whole E.T.A. thing backfired on you Chris. *laughs*
June 9th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
So it would appear, Aaron. Thanks.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Do you know if the delay is at Benbecula or Bleep’s end? If the latter, perhaps a friendly email from a few fans might compel them to put it online sooner rather than later. (If I ran one of those download services and I knew there were a bunch of people eager to give me money, I’d do my best to beat the competition to market.)
June 10th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I just received a response from Bleep support - good news:
—
Hi Andrew,
Sorry about the wait, i’m just getting it up onto the store now…. Should be live on the site in a couple of hours.
Regards
Bleep Support
June 10th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Oh, nice one Andrew—was just about to hit ’send’ and fire off a mail to Bleep myself.
Fingers crossed we’ll see it up before the end of the working day (here).
June 11th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
It’ll be up by the end of the week, apparently.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Sad news… but yeah, we’ll get it one day or an other
The longer the better, pleasure will be multiplied! I keep in touch.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
MP3s released on Bleep! (and FLACs?)
June 11th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Ah good. Yep, hopefully FLACs will follow before too long.
http://bleep.com/?bleep=BEN039