| July 2003 This month several CDs have been released by the Infinte Sector group. All very good they include Unsafe by Butterfly and Remixes and Collaborations. The latter includes a neuron-nest remix of Darph Nader's 'He had to get out'. There should be a decent demo coming from neuron-nest soon entitled 'Midwife for Black Nights', I'm hoping to distribute this to experimental radio stations and zines. If you can provide help doing this, I'd be greatful. July 2003 I've just finished writing a song called 'Synesthetic Watcher' which will be the first track on Midwife for Black Nights. This track, will probably be available through isector on the fourth general compilation CD which is yet to be released |
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| December 2003 Ok, the www.indieville.com review is now on the reviews part of this site, although again I recommend you go check out their site for the same reasons listed below for other such sites. Having read this review, I don't think I'll be sending homemade CDs to reviewers anylonger, i.e. I'll send them instead the properly processed CDs which you can buy from mixonic (go see the CD info page). Have no fear, the CDs I sent out for review are not those that you can buy (same material, different quality). I liked the review. December 2003 These past months have been a tad barren, I've been doing other things. But, I have finished and uploaded to the soundclick.com site a new track called 'Drunken Dinner Party' and a remix of Boron Jeper Live's album 'Translation', it is called 'nostalgic spaceman'. Just today, I've found an interview posted on www.neo-zine.com, an interesting read and tomorrow (23rd Dec) there should be another 'Midwife for black nights' review up on www.indieville.com. As I write, I've yet to see it, so I could be directing you to some serious criticism, but so be it, you can make your own minds up anyhow by listening to some of the music at soundclick or mixonic, links on the mp3 and CD pages of this site. For the neo-zine interview just go to www.neo-zine.com and follow the interview tab to neuron-nest. October 2003 Since getting the airplay in Toronto neuron-nest has had a couple more 'events' which are note worthy. neuron-nest was played on a French internet radio, run by a guy called Iso Brown I believe. And also, neuron-nest has received three pretty outstanding reviews. They're listed below and I've created another page with copies of them because at some point the various web zines are going to clear their servers and I don't want to lose this feedback. Splendidzine neuron-nest review neo-zine neuron-nest review signal zero neuron-nest review August 2003 On July 29th, neuron nest was played on the radio! The track called 'The Tin Fairy' was played on a radio show called Feedback Monitor in Toronto, Canada. Unfortunately I've heard little else from the demos I sent off at the end of July. The below mentioned fourth non themed compilation from the Infinite Sector is out, or atleast all the tracks are up on the Soundclick site which you can either search for or go to the isector website where you'll find a link. Its sounding good. |
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| April 2004 neuron-nest and singer-songwriter Julie Chow have just finished collaborating on track called 'Underbelly'. You can find it in the usual place at www.soundclick.com. It was fun working with a singer and such a good one too, go listen! I've also remixed one her tracks called 'Gentle Breeze' which is both on my site on soundclick as well as hers, go to hers, and then you can hear her other stuff including the original. I've posted the results of the jam with Max Atkin, Dan Brodie and Spline in London. The tracks are called imaginatively, track1 and track2. They were fun to write and although a little sketchy, they're worth a listen. We have tentatively, and perhaps only for the moment, called ourselves the Heisenberg Five, even though there's only four of us, but five has a better ring to it than four. I hope to be writing a new CD's worth of music this summer to send off to those who might be interested in the sort of stuff im writing, but that's a while away, i.e. June. March 2004 Well, it has been a while. I've been trying to get a band together here in Cambridge but to no avail. I think the main problem is finding musicians who aren't looking to focus on music and ditch much else. I don't want to do that, I'm doing this degree and plan on getting as much as I can from it. Of course, this doesn't mean no music! I've posted a track that is arbitrarily called 'Wandering Thoughs'. This is the product of a couple days of jamming with Max Atkin, Dan Brodie and Spline using a computer, electric drum kit, bass, guitar and a synth. The plan is to do this again this month, so I'll post the results of that when they come. Also, I've completed a remix of a track by the singer-songwriter Jule Chow which is posted on my soundclick site and I think she was looking into posting it somewhere else as well. I think you should check her music out, its good stuff. |
| Novermber 6th Sorry for the gap in news. So, Dolls has received some reviews. They'll be posted in the reviews section shortly. The one from splendidezine wasn't as good as last year, which I was quite disappointed by. But the other review I've found was good. And tracks from Dolls have received airplay in Cananda again! Airplay is always cool news. Some of neuron-nest's music is featured in Max Atkin's game, 'Zoid's Quest'. Which I urge you to check out here http://zoids-quest.sourceforge.net It's a cool platform game with some neat tricks. Otherwise I'm afraid music production has been rather slack these past few months. However, come December I plan on writing some more songs, probably with more vocals and using a piece of software that reminds me of the piece of software I started writing with, oldskool Jazzware :) . The stuff I wrote on that I think was less looped, and more that every part was composed. I hope to write things like that, but with more bass, and some vocals that I'm going to play with. It sounds like fun. But for now I've got other committments. It sucks having to suppress the urge to write music. In fact, for just saying that I know some musicians would accuse me of blasphemy against some kind of musical spirit. I remember looking for a band to play in over the summer (to play bass in), and people would shun you when you said you only wanted to play/compose for the summer. They would reply with things like, 'music is for life' some shit like that. For a start, the idea that just cus I wanted to play bass in a band during my free time in the summer does not mean I don't do anything else musical over the other times. Jeez man I've been in bands before, and I hope to be again. I write music on my computer because it's so fucking difficult trying to find people who are thinking along similar lines to what you want to do. It was a sad day when John Peel died a short while ago. Not because he was some special guy personally (I say that cus I don't think I'm in a position to judge), but because in the UK we've so few outlets for new music, and a loss of one so fantastic as Peel means a massive hoel where there should, if things were better here, have been only a small one. He should have been surrounded by people equally interested in /music/ not just making money, making a new product for some people who like music like some people like fashionable items. They play the game of staying in touch not with some scene somewhere, looking out for new interesting music, but so they can keep ahead or inline with their peers. A lot fo things a relike that. Maybe it's stupid to try and divorce social factors from aesthetic ones. In fact it blatantly is, but I can still dislike the fact. Till next time. August 2004 It has been done! 47 copies of the Dolls of a different kind EP are at this moment going to fresh ears. 6 tracks of new material, and different sounding material. The tracks were inspired by thought, 'what would the Neuron Nest band look like playing in a some dark backstreet club of a land where strange creatures wonder and.......play music! Anyway, we'll see whether anyone cares for it. Its less electronic than the last EP, a great focus on what a band could play. So there are drums that sound more like drums than they previously did. There's bass. There's synths/samplers and there's vocals from Julie Chow and on another track, from myself. If you hear the music then let me know what you think by the message board. Oh, and at the end of July I and a couple of friends went out distributing a free promotional CD with tracks from both Spline and Neuron Nest. 6 each. Its FREE! So if you go looking in indie record stores in London you should be able to get yourself a copy. Look at the flyer sections mostly. If you want a copy of 'Dolls of a different kind' then go to the Album Information section of this site. I've also remixed another one of Julie Chow's tracks, 'Red Like Wine'. The remix is on my soundclick site, the original is on her latest CD, but you can stream it from her soundclick site. Man, its a drag not playing live. |
| June 2005 And here we are again, back at Summer time. Well, nearly. I've been trying to find musicians around here. It's only been half successful. And I've been trying to teach myself to sing whilst playing bass. This is difficult. But it can be done, and provided I commit myself to it, it should be do-able, and then I can move over to doing some stuff live. Which would be cool. And it's the only way I can really get a less than anonymous audience. But that might turn out to be 'non-neuron-nest' stuff. Whatever. I just want to play in a band again. I've been writing a couple more tracks. They're in the vein of the three tracks I put up in March, but cleaner/higher quality in sound. I might try and sort out some of the sounds on those other tracks. If there's anyone in London or Cambridge interested in getting together (in Cambridge, especially if you are a drummer) then get in touch. There's a new review of Dolls. It's at: http://www.neo-zine.com And there's a track up on the Soundclick site I did at the same time as the three tracks mentioned below. I was messing around with a kinda shouty/talk vocals like The Arm. A band worth checking out. March 2005 New tracks up at the soundclick site. 3 to be exact, i.e. Folktale, Lullaby for youths not babies, and Blinking Boxes. I'm not quite happy with the way they are at the moment, but as a rough idea of which direction neuron-nest might be headed, they give a clue. Enjoy. March 2005 I've been silent over the past few months, because neuron-nest has not been doing too much these past few months. However, as always, I'm never going to stop writing music (not unless I become an apathetic schmuck, with wife, kids and a boring house in suburban wonderland! - Something I don't think any of us intend, but I really mean it, I hope). I've got deadlines to meet up until the 18th March, then I will have some spare time to write some stuff. I've been listening to the stuff I wrote when I was 16 and I really like that. Then again I listen to Midwife and I like that too. But the latest offering of mine I think I should have sat on for a while. I wrote it last summer in a few weeks and I didn't change stuff after I'd written it. But that's what's needed. I need to hear it with virgin ears. Of course, that's impossible, so I just have to leave a gap and keep working on the tracks. But recently I've also been listening to a lot of angry politics punk/hardcore. But then in the past it's rare that my intended influences become my actual influences (heh, isn't that always the case?). So as ever, we'll see. But yeah, I'm looking forward to sinking my fingers between the strings of my bass and doing some sequencing, and looking for more interesting sounds! And it finally snowed in the part of the UK I'm actually at. It seems that everywhere else in the UK has been coated in, what is for us Brits, quite a lot of snow. But here, Cambridge, just got missed out. But this morning that's been fixed.changed. Over new yrs I met up with the guys from the Heisenberg Five again. Was good. We recorded a couple of new tracks. Sketchy as always. Both of them weird mixes. The second one (session 5) especially. It starts of with this kinda walking bass-line, and kinda swing feel to it, and then just drops into some acid drum'n'bass (again, kinda). It's cool. Hopefully some of you guys are still around :) |