In celebration of summer’s arrival (finally!), Lemodie CDs and A Midsummer Nice Dream double vinyl are now half price from my shop, until the end of July.

Yesterday, The Setup kindly published a short interview with me, detailing the gear I use in my daily musical exploits. It’s a frank run-down of my minimal setup, what I love and loathe about the various software and equipment I use, plus some wish-list musings. Be sure to check out some of their other interviews, as there are quite a few big-hitters of the geek world on there too.

A prototype 12″ of 2003′s ill-fated EAT001 EP has been added to the shop. More test pressing and compilation items to follow.

Initial findings are promising, though we hope to carry out further research in order to fully ascertain the origin of the artefacts uncovered so far. These appear to be cultural goods, most likely primitive digital commodities as were commonly available during the late 20th century (i.e. just prior to the so-called ‘Blackout’ period of dematerialisation). Initial theories of these artefacts as being part of a votive deposit have now largely been ruled out.

We have yet to determine the type of encodings used, as they match no known current data types. One theory that has been posited is the possibility to decode the data present using one of the early pre-holographic methods, possibly through the optical demodulation of a pulse-code data stream (infra red?). Given the size and dimensions of the artefact, it is presumed (or at least claimed by one of my colleagues!) to spin during the decoding process, though as always, it would be prudent to keep assumptions to a minimum whilst we uncover more information to test the veracity of these claims. As for the type of data contained on the disc, we are almost certain there is an audio component, as implied by the markings inscribed on the upper surface, but given our knowledge of the video storage methods of the era we doubt any presence of a video component.

We suspect a variety of similar artefacts may be uncovered once expansion of the dig site has been approved, but knowing how long these bureaucratic procedures can take, it may be weeks before we can continue. However, two of the three artefacts have already been quickly earmarked by research institutes (one in London, the other in Somerville, MA), so there is still one disc remaining in our possession, which we will continue to study until that is inevitably also sold, either for exhibition or research.

It seems Benbecula are having a bit of a clear out, and are currently selling all their physical releases for a quid or two; £1.99 for albums, and 99p for EPs. If you fancy picking up Lemodie and Like Dust for just four quid, then you’re in luck. Why not pick up some Christ. double vinyl for a couple of quid too? Talk about a sale. Wow.

Last year San Diego-based games developer Psyonix got in touch about licensing a couple of tracks in a tech demo/game called Whizzle, showcasing the Unreal Development Kit. Being a demo, it’s just a single level (for now, at least), but I’m glad it came to fruition nonetheless. Here’s a short vid of Whizzle in action:

If you’re interested in learning more about the UDK and fancy dipping your toes into the world of game development, then this video of Dave at Psyonix gives you a quick intro to the platform. The UDK is free to download too, so given a little free time there’s nothing stopping you from crafting your own titles.

Nothing quite like opening your front door, wearing your dressing gown and slippers, to be met with disdain by a burly delivery man already four hours into his working day. Nice. Shortly after he’d finished looking me up and down with barely-disguised contempt, and informing me of eight boxes with my name on it, I was proudly standing in my hallway wondering where I could store 800 CDs.

I’ve already annoyed the staff and patrons in the local Post Office by shipping the dozen or so pre-orders, so they are now well on their way to their new homes! A big thanks is in order to everyone who pre-ordered — I hope you received your instant downloads trouble-free (you’ve got to love Bandcamp!).

As usual, I’ve also sent a bundle of Lemodies to CD Baby, to make the postal fees a little easier on the pocket for US fans. I’ve added them to my Amazon seller account too, so if you’d prefer to order through Amazon’s checkout you’re free to do that (though you’ll have to put up with a slightly higher price and no download). Speaking of Amazon, if anyone wouldn’t mind dropping a quick review there, I’d hugely appreciate it (for any of my releases, not just Lemodie).

Anyway, I’ve ceremoniously updated the html in my shop to mark this momentous occasion, and hereby declare Lemodie in stock and on sale.

Back in tangible form.

At long last, after being out of print for over two years, I’ve finally managed to scrape together enough cash to organise a re-press of my 2006 sophomore album. It’s being manufactured as I type by DMS, and shouldn’t be longer than two or three weeks away, fingers crossed.

In preparation of its arrival, I’m taking pre-orders via Bandcamp here, which also covers an instant download in a variety of formats (I’ve also thrown in the CD hidden track as a bonus).

Now, I’m under no illusions as to how the market has changed in the past three/four years, and so have set the price at £6 plus P&P, which seems to me like the sweet-spot for CDs sans middleman.

Just a quick note to let you know I’ve added my meagre inventory of Like Dust copies to my shop, to help ease me through the Xmas period, and help fund more skydiving jumps.

And it needs you! Yes, I know you may have already done this (and I do apologise for the inconvenience), but it’d be awfully nice of you to click on it again.

Following my traditional of sporadic and occasionally regrettable social media suicides, I had removed my Facebook profile after inadvertently hosing the Ochre page (I thought it would be ‘hibernating’ along with my personal profile, but I guess not!). Now while I’m not missing MySpace, Facebook was a much handier means of getting snippets of news updates out there, and although Twitter has become increasingly useful for this, there’s no denying Facebook’s convenience and popularity.

I think it’d probably be a good idea for me to install some admin other than myself though, just in case I get trigger happy while aiming at my feet again.

Oh, and I am working on some new music by the way too, if I may self-consciously steer this post towards something a little more newsworthy. More details to come soon (demo track deleted from post).

If you’ve been following Bandcamp’s Twitter/blog updates you’ll have probably noticed a rather major update: the ability to sell physical products alongside your downloads. Needless to say, I sorted out a bundle for my remaining Midsummer Nice Dream vinyl, pairing up the double vinyl and an instant download for the current sale price of £5. I’ll keep it at that price until next week, so if you were thinking about either purchasing it on FLAC or picking up the vinyl, now’s the time to act. Consequently, I’ll probably retire the Ochre shop in its current state, and divert traffic to Bandcamp for sales.

I’ve also sent some vinyl to CD Baby, enabling stateside fans to get a better deal on shipping than ordering from me, although at the current sale price it’s probably still cheaper to buy direct.

Just a quick note to let you all know that my Benbecula releases are now on Spotify; I’ve added direct links for each release on the music page. ‘Midsummer’ will hopefully follow once Emubands hammer out a deal with Spotify.

Yes, actually. Time for an autumnal sale! The AMND double 12″ will be half-price, at just a fiver plus P&P, at the Ochre shop. For a limited period of around a week, until I thereafter hopefully remember to put the prices up again.

All proceeds will go towards a CD repress of either AMND or Lemodie. Not sure which yet!

Say hello to a one-off Whispers/Dustlands 'Spectre' EP

A happy Ochre, last week.

It’d be nice to be able to sell odd one-offs like this, as they really are quite unique. Maybe start a line of Ochre ‘Auratic Artefacts’…

Along with my previous albums, you can stream the whole thing in its entirety here, and can purchase downloads through Bleep and Amazon mp3, with iTunes et al following whenever they get round to it. If you missed out on Lemodie CDs, Bleep now has Lemodie available in lossless wav, for a proper CD-quality download. I had hoped for a repress, but as Benbecula are closing their doors in November, that’s probably now not going to happen.

As for ‘Like Dust’ CDs, your best bet at the moment is to order directly from Benbecula, though I’ve noticed Juno, Norman Records and Rough Trade also have it up for sale. Hopefully the CDs will filter through the usual retail outlets in time, but as it was with Lemodie, distribution is expected to be somewhat spotty for a while.

A Midsummer Nice Dream CDs have now completely sold out; if there’s sufficient demand for a repress, I’ll organise one down the road at some point.

The Ochre tees and hoodies have been selling quite nicely, and I’ve added some more designs for the fairer sex too. Send me some pictures of you wearing your Ochre threads and I’ll put up a gallery of the best ones.

That is a legitimate term, isn’t it? Soft-release? Well the album’s out in the sense that it can be exchanged for hard-cash from the likes of Amazon mp3 and Bleep. If you’ve already swung by Bleep you’ve probably noticed that they now keep their lossless catalogue in wav format, rather than FLAC. While this might mean downloads are a little longer (less of a problem these days I guess), it’ll also mean greater player compatibility without having to decode anything, which is handy (always a step ahead of the pack, those crafty Bleeplings). Shame lossless still carries a premium over mp3, but I’m sure that’ll fall by the wayside eventually.

Anyway, for the CDs, we’re now looking at next Monday, unless you pre-ordered from Benbecula, in which case you’ll have it this week, I think. As ever, you can stream the whole thing on my music page, or Last.fm.

The Wire (click to enlarge)

Combi-post. Firstly, I’m very proud to present a new line of professionally-designed Ochre apparel (currently comprising of some sweet tees and hoodies) sporting Nate Reeves‘ flowing Ochre logo. Manufactured on-demand through Spreadshirt, the garments feature some plush flock prints (the kind that’s slightly raised and soft), as well as some special print treatments such as glitter and sparkle finishes. There are a generous variety of complementary colours available already, but I’ll probably add a couple more products, such as some ladies tees. If there’s anything else you’d like to see in there, then please feel free to make suggestions.

Worth noting: UK/European customers are probably best served by Spreadshirt.net, as it’s based in Germany, but for everyone else, you’ll probably want to buy from the US-based Spreadshirt.com.

Secondly, the first review has come back, from the venerable The Wire magazine. I’ve transcribed the review to text here, but you can probably read the original scan anyway, so here it is. Not a bad start to the album’s life, I hope you’ll agree. Now roll on Monday!

Have a good weekend.

P.S. Happy Birthday to me, antique-aged thirty…

This will be old news to those following me on twitter, but it’s so cool that I’m compelled to write a little blog post about it too.

Designer Nate Reeves has knocked up a very cool intricate and flowing Ochre logo, which he then sent to a bespoke engraving outfit to produce a very tasty 3D laser-engraved skateboard deck, with the detailed Ochre logo embossed across it. How cool is that? Talk about a unique artefact. Along with the Ochre logo, he sent a couple of other designs along with it for the same treatment, such as his artwork for Narita‘s final Terminal compilation, and a third design of his own.

Check out more superb pics of the decks in all their glory here.

Minor rant ahead. Last week I pulled the plug on my MySpace page, though admittedly not without a certain amount of hesitation and deliberation—it took a long time to amass those hard-earned 120k plays after all, that’s for sure. But, once I thought about the ridiculous valuations MySpace has bewilderingly managed to achieve on the back of advertising potential (not to mention the many millions of penniless and uncompensated musicians bolstering its value), as well as its corporate bedfellows, I felt a little better about ditching it.

It seems I’m not the only one who’s gotten fed up with numerous bugs and annoyances that litter the site, as various stats from the Guardian seems to portray a pretty sharp, but consistent, downturn of MySpace users and visitors over the past year. Personally, I got fed up with tracks inexplicably skipping part-way through, as well as the many error messages that used to plague the site, plus the tortuously inefficient attempt at page customisation, innumerable adverts and insufferable amounts of desperate spamming.

Of course, it’s still a free service though, so perhaps I shouldn’t grumble too much about its numerous shortcomings (though once its Google trust fund runs out next year, it’ll be interesting to see how it pays for itself). It does provide a familiar interface for those wishing to pop by and hear an artist’s music, without too much fuss. But unfortunately for MySpace, it’s no longer 2006, and there are much better alternatives for showcasing your music on the net. There’s Bandcamp and SoundCloud, for starters, both of which provide many more options and forward-thinking features, music widget-sharing facilities and greater general flexibility than MySpace ever could. They’re independently run, have no shareholders to appease, and appear to be run by genuine enthusiasts rather than advertisers and marketers. I don’t know how long that will last, or how both site’s growth will affect their continued operations, but for now things seem good.

But, as we’ve seen with countless other music showcase sites over the past decade, the online environment progresses swiftly, and if they don’t adapt and progress to meet the expectations of their users, these sites will quickly fall by the wayside. As soon as MySpace proves to be more of an unprofitable millstone around the necks of its parent companies, it’ll be discarded just like the rest before it. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt about the online economy, huge page views and users don’t equate with profitability, and as soon as one free service bites the dust, another will pop up, until it too realises it can’t squeeze money from users expecting a free service, and so on.

I’m getting fed up with hopping from site to site, keeping up with the latest ‘social’ trends, so I figure it’s perhaps best for me, at the end of the day, to concentrate on my own site, rather than spread myself thinly across various social outposts. I’m not earning a living from this (not by a long shot), and have never drawn much of a crowd regardless of how much I plaster myself over the net, so I don’t feel the need to advertise my ‘brand’ the way as a more… radio-friendly act might.

I do find it ironic given the continued fanfare we read weekly about the net’s ‘empowering’ or ‘democratising’ effects on indie musicians, only for us to end up having to connect through the mediation of a huge site like MySpace or Facebook in order to stand a chance of being heard, even if that chance pales against, say, winning the lottery. As for networking and communication—what’s wrong with email? At least we can control our communications that way, rather than relying on infrastructure set up for us by MySpace and Facebook, according to their own whims and advertising needs. Twitter has shown us that our networking online selves can essentially be boiled down to efficient sound bites, necessarily so in order to keep on top of the endless communications torrent (insofar as we ever can), and for that it does do a very good job. It goes to show though, just how far we can quite happily pare down our online selves to the bare minimum required, when needed.

Anyway, I’ll stop there. Hopefully, somewhere within that ranting, there’s some insight as to why I pulled the plug. Thanks for hanging in there.

Just a final reminder that I’ll be closing the mastering service and shop before the end of the week, until August, as I’ll be off to concentrate on my thesis work over the summer. I’ve got 7 Midsummer Nice Dream CDs left in stock, which would be nice to clear; considerably more vinyl is available, so don’t worry about that — plenty left. If you need any odd tracks mastered, please arrange to get them to me by Wednesday at the latest, just so I’ve got a couple of days to work on them and get them back to you.

I’ll still be online around here though and obviously contactable via email—not going to leave the face of the planet while I’ve got an impending album release.

Yep, my next album ‘Like Dust of the Balance’, is now available to pre-order directly from Benbecula, to ship on the 20th of July. It’s quite far off, I’ll admit, but then if you order early enough you’ll have long forgotten by the time its release rolls around, and you can surprise your future self with a gift.

Ochre – Lunar Suburbia on a HDD Speaker from Ochre on Vimeo.

The track is ‘Lunar Suburbia,’ taken from the next Ochre album, ‘Like Dust of the Balance,’ playing through an old hard disk soldered up to the headphone outputs of my sound card.

Yep, it sounds terrible. But looking at the little drive head vibrate and bob in time with the music perhaps redeems it a little.

If you fancy making your own hard disk speaker, there are a few articles dotted around the net documenting the process, step-by-step, such as the one at the ever-handy Instructables.

I’ve decided to take advantage of one of Bandcamp’s latest feature additions, and have generated a few download codes for A Midsummer Nice Dream.

Anyone who buys a copy of the album on vinyl will receive a download code along with the album, so they may download a high-quality digital version of the release for their iPod, car, PC etc., at no extra cost. The codes are, as far as I can tell, good for one single download only, so choose your format wisely! mp3, flac, aac and ogg are all present and accounted for.

I haven’t yet decided how to present the codes — I could use stickers on the shrink-wrap, but risk buyers throwing this away with the packaging, or I could put paper slips in with the vinyl, and risk them being ignored at the bottom of the envelope. Could email them, but that’s more work for me and could still be ignored. Hmm. Any preferences?

EDIT: Limited-time demo removed.

I’ve just uploaded a new track demo, following a tentative test-airing on the kind and gentle folks at em411. It’s a little different to my usual output, actually containing intelligible vocals, and due to my vocal delivery probably has a slight eighties tinge to it. (That makes it hip, right? Or am I 18 months late to that luminous yellow and pink party?) So far I’ve been called a Bowie-esque crooner with hint of David Sylvian, Gary Numan ’09, and somewhat damningly, Flock of Seagulls.

Dissenters rest assured, I don’t plan to abandon instrumental electronica any time soon, but I will say that this was a lot of fun to record. I kind of want to put out a 7″ with a couple of synthpoppier tracks on it.

If you haven’t seen/heard my remix of Jay Bharadia, you can listen to/download it from SoundCloud, as well as the other remixes from Lone, Airliner ’67 and Implosion Quintet.

I’m actually on SoundCloud, and although currently mainly using it as a means of receiving mastering files, I’ll be uploading demos and sketches now and then, so if you’d like to ‘follow’ me to be notified of track uploads, please visit my page. SoundCloud is a very nifty service, totally optimised for listening and commenting to music—you can comment on particular sections of tracks using the natty timeline while listening. As far as I know there are also the obligatory widgets for posting/sharing tunes too.

The server can occasionally strain under the weight of users, as it’s getting rather popular, but it seems pretty responsive these days, ironing out its initial teething problems.

Meanwhile, back at Ochre HQ, the new album is back from mastering, coutesy of panicStudios. Sounding warm and punchy after being fed through some ridiculously expensive analogue gear, waiting patiently for a release schedule to slot into. I’ll be able to spill some more beans once I’ve got a definite plan to unveil.

Midsummer Nice Dream CDs and vinyl continue to shift nicely, but there are still a few copies left if you fancy one. If you’d rather have a download version, it’s slowly making its way through the usual download stores like iTunes and Napster etc. At the moment it’s currently selling for a ridiculously cheap $1.69 at Amie Street (for 320kbps mp3, no less), though given the dynamic pricing used there it’ll probably creep up slowly as people grab it. Also on Bandcamp for a flat $6, in just about every digital format available ever.

I think that’s the current news round-up sorted.

Yes, I’ve finally succumbed, after repeatedly finding myself reading about the apparent usefulness of Twitter. Suck on my tweets.

Should mean that little posts like this, better-suited to ol’ tweetsie, will see the light of day.

I’ve received a box of the remaining Midsummer Nice Dream CD stock from Toytronic, and have added it to the shop. There are quite a few less copies on CD than vinyl—about fifty—so please act quickly if you want to secure a copy. As ever, the price is a very reasonable £6 plus P&P.

I’ve been uploading much of my music to Bandcamp, to see how well it works, as it offers a few very handy features for precisely zero money (for the time being anyway).

Firstly, the lossless uploads are automatically converted to a veritable plethora of download formats, such as three grades of mp3 (including two VBR), two grades of AAC, Ogg, FLAC and Apple Lossless.

Secondly, it gives me some useful stats as to what’s been listened to, what’s been skipped, and where people have come from to listen. There’s also plenty of widget-sharing options, as expected on today’s internets, enabling you to plaster my tunes all over the superhighweb.

Looks like you can also sell downloads there as well, offering either fixed price or donation options for the tracks, but I’ve yet to explore this option. Might give this a go once I get some more releases up there.

I’ve just set up my own little shop selling odd stock of my past releases, such as A Midsummer Nice Dream on vinyl for just £6 plus P&P. I hope to get the odd limited release up there too, so please keep your eyes peeled for the odd one-off relic from the Ochre archives.

Due to the way the shopping cart works (in this case, the FatFreeCart) in not catering for multiple shipping fees, I’ve set out separate purchase buttons depending on the shipping destination, with P&P prices ranging from £3 in the UK to £4 for EU customers and £6 for US. Yes, shipping vinyl is rather steep, so I’ve kept the base unit price down to around half of the usual retail price.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of releasing some of my unreleased ‘Volumes’ or ‘AMD’ on CD—would this be of any interest to you? I’ll see how feasible a short run of CDs will be and possibly get some up if there’s suitable interest.

New Ochre vinyl! It’s been quite some time since I’ve had something out on vinyl, so I’m excited to announce the release of a new 12″ EP, released on Baselogic, on Monday (distributed by Veto). Here’s the tracklist:

A1. Petl
A2. Bass Recorder (a remix of Global Goon)
B1. Neoretro
B2. Chronon

Three of the four tracks have been available here on my site in the past, but I hope that won’t dissuade you from grabbing a copy; it’s been mastered at Alchemy to sound its best for its vinyl debut, so it ought to be no contest between mp3 and 12″.

It’s available to buy at the moment from Boomkat and Juno, to ship on Monday. No doubt it will filter through the retail channel over the course of the week, but if your favourite store doesn’t hold it, please ask them to order it in for you.

Edit: More stores: Tempest (Brum, UK), Phonica (London), Clone (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Fat Fenders (Dresden, Germany) etc.

Like all other Baselogic releases, it will also be available digitally in due course. My remix of Ed Chamberlain is now available on mp3 from Juno, Amazon, Beatport and Nuloop, with usual suspects Bleep and iTunes to follow.