Just a quick post to let you know that I’m down to the last six copies of A Midsummer Nice Dream on double vinyl (plus a single copy over at CD Baby). As you can see in the picture, one of the copies had split its shrink wrap (but has not been played); the rest are still wrapped. Head over to Bandcamp to secure yourself a copy (download and bonus track included).
Merry Christmas/Happy Festivus folks; have a great holiday and New Year. Here’s a little festive piece for you:
Xpian Mass by Ochre
Thanks for your continued support. Looking forward to an exciting 2012!
Following tepid on the heels of ‘Early Learning’, I’ve recently updated the Bandcamp editions of my remaining three albums with 24-bit masters. Like Dust of the Balance has undergone a straightforward update to 24-bit, re-dithered from the original track montage. Lemodie and A Midsummer Nice Dream, meanwhile, have been remastered to 24-bit from the original mixdowns, and so sound a bit more polished and refined. All albums continue to be offered for a price you deem fair.
Over in the shop, the Ochre Spreadshirt stores have been updated with a new shirt option — an ultra-soft vintage fit, tri-blend, adjective-laden American Apparel Track tee. I recently discovered this comfy garment after receiving it in Bandcamp-print guise; it’s the softest tee I own.
Meanwhile, I’m excited to be working on the soundtrack for the animated documentary, The Centrefold Project, due for release during Spring 2012.
I’d been planning to re-release these tracks properly for a while now, to give them the conclusive send-off they deserve. Thanks to the help of some friends, plus some professional mastering, I can happily announce that Early Learning is now available for a name-your-price download on Bandcamp! (iTunes etc. will follow over the forthcoming weeks.)
Although all the tracks have been previously released online in one form or another in the past, to collate and properly sequence them, give them a polish and adorn with some great nkurence-penned artwork, has breathed new life into them.
Early Learning constitutes most of my pre-’Midsummer’ output from between 2001 and 2003, and in some cases required revisiting the Cubase VST 5 song files, to be remixed and re-rendered for a cohesive release (i.e. tracks 1, 3 & 9). Being a download-only album, it seemed like a good opportunity to encode the FLACs in 24-bit, exceeding the 16-bit sound quality typical of a CD-borne album. (Which reminds me, I can also upgrade the FLAC editions of ‘Like Dust’, Lemodie and ‘Midsummer’ with 24-bit FLACs too. Shall arrange this when I get the chance.)
I’ve also taken full advantage of Bandcamp’s bonus-bundling capabilities, uploading a couple of extra tracks (a remastered ‘Bipolar Bears’, plus my Zelda remix), in addition to Chris Larkee’s video for ‘Esign’. The Esign video has been updated with the remastered audio, and rendered to a 720p H.264/MPEG-4 video file.
Enjoy!
Please remember to hit those like/tweet buttons on Bandcamp and help spread the word. Much appreciated, thanks.
I’ve finally finished updating my production portfolio, following a few fevered QuickTime encoding sessions, showcasing most of the higher-profile work I’ve completed this year (plus some of my favourite projects from the past few years).
Initially I was a little reticent to combine my recording and production work under the ‘Ochre’ umbrella, but seeing as though the production side of things now (thankfully) makes up a sizeable portion of my working life (along with my mastering work), it seems to make sense now for my site to reflect this. It’s also a good means of keeping my portfolio neatly catalogued, online and in one place, as I had almost forgotten about some the work I’d undertaken in the past (I’d been busier than I thought!).
Additionally, I’ve created a small library of available production tracks, which will hopefully serve both as a demonstration of my compositional versatility, as well as a catalogue of pieces that are available for licensing.
I’m very keen to expand my portfolio, particularly with some game audio work, so if you’re an aspiring game developer in need of some music or sound effects for your game, please get in touch. Although I’ve licensed my music for use in games in the past, I’m really itching to get stuck in with some game audio production, interactive music and sound design, so I’ve been poring over various audio APIs, raising my proficiency with FMOD and Wwise.
Finally, I’ll be dropping some news about some Ochre related releases over the forthcoming weeks, so stay tuned. Thanks!
The sequel to Sony’s popular LittleBigPlanet game has finally been released on PS3. Developed once again by the talented folks of Media Molecule), LittleBigPlanet 2 is touted as not merely a platform game, but a platform for games, allowing players to create their own games, levels and music.
My track ‘Infotain Me’, taken from Lemodie, was licensed for use as part of the in-game soundtrack within LittleBigPlanet 2, and features alongside tracks from the likes of Plaid and Squarepusher. Needless to say, I was thrilled to be involved.
Infotain Me by Ochre
It’s well into 2011, and now that they have officially ceased trading, my album contracts with Benbecula Records have expired. As a result, I’ve kindly had the rights to ‘Lemodie’ and ‘Like Dust’ handed back to me, so I’ve made them both available for download directly from my Bandcamp page (alongside ‘Midsummer’).
All three albums are downloadable on a ‘name your price’ basis, currently with no minimum charge, so if you simply feel like swiping them without paying a penny or sharing your email address, you’re free to do so. Better yet, you can set a price you deem fair for my hard work, and sleep easy knowing you’re incentivising future Ochre output. Please spread the word; retweet, share, post etc.
Each full-album download contains a bonus track, with ‘Lemodie’ and ‘Midsummer’ having their respective CD ‘secret’ tracks appended to their tracklist, while ‘Like Dust’ features ‘Threnodie’, a track previously released as part of the ‘Death of an Aura’ EP (which I’ve now retired).
The expiry of my contracts with Benbecula also means that both albums will start to disappear from third-party download stores. Once all down, I’ll set about distributing them through my own digital aggregator (probably Emubands, as they currently handle ‘Midsummer’ distro).
This may be old news to anyone following me on SoundCloud or Twitter, but still, I thought I’d make it a bit more official by jotting it in the blog.
I’ve posted both of these as, to be frank, I’ve no idea when or even if I’ll get another album completed (for now I’m shooting for the summer!). Rather than just sit on a pile of tracks that may or may not see light of day, I’ve popped them up on SoundCloud. As you can see, they’re freely downloadable, so you can enjoy them on your portable players without being tethered to the cloud. I must say, it feels nice to be able to post tracks online for immediate feedback again.
Glassmaker by Ochre
Blue Hours by Ochre
If you’ve been following me on Twitter this will be old news, but the late Benbecula Records are having a Christmas sale, selling all physical releases for just 99p each. Lemodie and Like Dust are there for the taking, for a whopping grand total of £1.98.
Hi folks. I’ve recently started work on a film soundtrack for Dolls, and currently have three pieces written to date, posted below. Feels nice to take off my Ochre hat from time to time, writing music tailored to the requirements of a specific project.
I’ll be posting more news as and when it trickles through, but if you’d like to actively stay in the loop with Dolls, we have a Facebook group to join, as well as a dedicated film blog for your bookmarks. If you’re on Twitter, you can also follow the Dolls team on there, too.
Meanwhile, I’m feverishly trying to complete my uni work over the summer, as well as sorting out the next Ochre project. 