At the start of the year I completed a project with composer David Sheppard, collaborating on his Snow Palms album, 'Intervals' (Village Green). David's a composer of beautiful minimal, idiophone-based music in a similar vein to Reich, Glass et al, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to add my own production flourishes to some of the tracks he'd laid down, working on six of the eleven album tracks in the end. I also got to score for a string quartet, which isn't something I regularly get to do, so that was quite the welcome challenge.
A review of the album surfaced today on Fluid Radio -- check it out to read a take on what we've done (though for whatever reason, I'm not mentioned there -- I'm involved, I promise!).
It's due for release on 19th of November. For more info/press copy and audio excerpts, please visit the release page on Village Green.
The animated documentary I scored at the start of the year,
Centrefold, has now been publicly released, so you can either watch
the Vimeo embed below, or head over to
www.thecentrefoldproject.org
to watch and comment.
It's officially an award-winner too, winning 'Best Animation' at the
2012 SCINEMA Film Awards!
Centrefold has been busy sparking debate in the media, getting a
mention on BBC Radio 4,
a feature in
The Huff Post,
Rude Magazine, plus plenty of local media coverage around the North East. It's wonderful
to see it making waves. If you're interested in following updates to the
project, keep an eye on their
Facebook page.
Oh, and I hope you like the music/sound design, too!
There's a nice little interview with me currently running at Real Eyes [direct link]. As well as featuring excerpts from our dialogue, the article also includes quotes from previous interviews I've done (it's always odd reading old interviews; "did I really say that?"). Anyway, it makes for a nice primer on what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and where I've come from.
While you're there, you may as well catch the interview with Hecq, too!
I recently completed composing the soundtrack and sound design for
Centrefold, a short animated documentary about labiaplasty. The film
illustrates the personal accounts, hopes and fears, of three women following
their decisions to undergo surgery. Here's the trailer:
During the project I familiarised myself with
Camel Audio's excellent
Alchemy synth, so you can expect to hear some evolving synth drones
and sample-mangling pads in the score.
Imperfect Samples' warm
Braunschweig piano sample library also came in very handy, affording
me the kind of warm, intimate piano chords that I can't seem to get enough of
lately.
It was also superb fun being able to get my hands dirty handling the sound
design for the film. Plenty of fabric-rustling, cutlery-clinking, field
recording shenanigans involved, including the implementation of sophisticated
GLOVEBIRD™ technology.
The full film's due for launch this summer, following its tour of film
festivals.
You can visit the official Centrefold site over at:
www.thecentrefoldproject.org
and take a peek behind the scenes on
the official Facebook page.
Just a quick post to let you know that I'm down to the last copy 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).
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.
London-based producer Lifecycle recently commissioned me for a remix for his 'Correcting Fluid' EP. Released today, the four-track EP is available for purchase from Juno, iTunes, Amazon mp3 etc., and can be streamed in full on SoundCloud.
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!
I figured it was about time I revamped my line up of shirts in an effort to simplify what's on offer and cut down on choice paralysis. The options have been whittled down to logos in black and white (leaving you to select your shirt colour), plus a small selection of hand-picked colourways. Garments are limited to mens' tees, manufactured by those wacky soft pornographers, American Apparel (though I might try some other garments soon). The stores are also a little prettier and more easily navigable these days too, following some thorough settings-delving and customising. No longer do you have to click on an individual garment to change colour.
Although I've still got both shops on the go, the US-centric .com and the Eurocentric .net, there's nothing to stop you ordering from either. Spreadshirt seem to operate on a 1$=£1 basis, which while initially baffling, might not be far from the truth when you factor in customs and VAT if ordering from the US store to the UK, for example.
I'll also be ending the current sale on physical products soon. No set date, but probably some point this week, so if you've been thinking about grabbing a Lemodie CD or Midsummer vinyl, act (moderately) quickly.
Lastly, you've probably noticed the new 'Production' label in the menu. As well as being kept comfortably busy with the mastering, I've also been doing more bespoke production work for various media clients, which I've been thoroughly enjoying. The frenetic work pace, prescriptive briefs and urgent deadlines contrast nicely with my (perhaps overly) leisurely Ochre output of late. I'll add these projects to the site once I receive the completed video files etc., and will no doubt post an update.