Sound Art Experiment number 11

Music can be a powerful force when used correctly.

Full of the joys of summer and the sounds of diplo I made my mixtape comeback with the latest instalment of Tayalarz, and the news of Dr Dre finally delivering on his long-awaited promise of a new album that fans have been waiting more than a decade for had prompted me to make a start on a 'Compton' influenced mix.

And even tho that creation may be in the extremely early stages and may eventually be lost to gestation, with the computer fired up and the hours growing small I chose to revisit a few neglected folders on the harddrive.

Lo and behold did Saturday morning creep up on me and shake me from my bed with a new desire.  

In this age of stealth albums nobody was expecting the penultimate SoundArt to grace the world with its presence.  Very few people were even wanting it.  But regardless.

The SoundArt project was a simple idea.

Instead of giving my brother my music and asking him to produce artwork influenced by the sounds he heard we would flip the script, he would provide artwork and I would be influenced.  12 images and 12 tracks produced over 12 months to create a full length experimental album within a year.

Track 1 debuted in December 2008....

(ahem)

SoundArt11 is a curious creature.  Staring at the stars and asking the ultimate questions as the artwork seriously suggests that we are not alone.

Other tracks have been much more of a sound collage, this perhaps could have been but now sounds more of a sound presentation... Taking it's musical cue and liberally borrowing Doorly's dubstep remix of Calvin Harris' 'Not Alone' as theories jacked from YouTube play out over it.

Previous instalments have heaved with creativity, either pulling things apart or putting them together, SoundArt11 was always intended to play out that way too, but the whole ethos of this expression of art was to let it find it's own way...

Only this morning was the majority of this track spun on its head to give it a more complete feel, choosing to play with a larger chunk of the original remix than originally intended and then swinging by the buena vista social club to provide a backdrop to a healthy discussion on the intelligence of our species that had been longing for a dancing partner for a long time.  The last piece of the puzzle fell from the sky, hailing from a planet that no longer exists.  I rented Man Of Steel two years ago in order to reuse a message that seems to resonate throughout this track, and also through the entire project.

welcome to my life.

welcome to my past.

or perhaps a former present.

whatever way you choose to view it, Anubis Horror, to me, is a memoir. it is a certain time, transposed and reproduced via music.

and music should be all about interpretation, which has left a question mark over how far I should go in explaining my own motives and my own decisions when creating this music.

it has been a long, strange journey, and one thing that I am certain of is that the Hunchbakk saga is not up to date, in an alternative reality, the Hunchbakk album would have been completed a number of years ago, I'd have found the time to work on the music and wrap it up quicker.

as such, when sourcing the spoken word material I restricted myself to trawling through poems from a very specific time frame, Open Myself Up and Teenaging had already been written and recorded, so I simply flicked through the pages until I found these among my original scrawlings and worked my way forward, taking notes of the passing years, as noted on occasion by my past self with great foresight

thankfully, by february 'project resurrection' had excavated a total of ten tracks, each in differing stages of completion, leaving my plans for a twelve track album not so far out of reach, it was then matching these up with my words, what to leave as instrumental, what needs adding, what needs changing and what needs completing.

now, if my memory serves me, then there are no lyrics/poetry on my album that were written any later than 2008 or possibly 2009, and of all the music, every single track on the album apart from one had its genesis in the same back bedroom that I wrote all my poetry in.

the time spent crafting it and moulding it to its final shape has felt like a certain form of regression for me, casting my mind back to my old self, my old bedroom, in my old home, I think the lyrics and the music reflects who I was, and now I'm wondering who it was that I left behind, and who I have become.

living in the past hasn't been easy, and the release felt like an absolution of sorts, a chance to start being me again, right now.


perhaps I shall break down the album further in a handful more posts, but for now, allow yourself to wallow in the past that I couldn't put to rest until recently.br>

debut album, Anubis Horror out now

of course it isn't unreasonable to launch your album from a country other than the one you live in...

a nice glitzy press conference at perhaps a swanky hotel of some sort

and in this day and age of live streaming and digital media coverage, it could be trending on twitter as soon as the first flash bulb pops


except this isn't the way the Hunchbakk album is launched


Anubis Horror, the debut album from Hunchbakk, released on the 29th June 2013



i picked the date specifically, the 29th being the last day that i am 29, my last day in my twenties, alongside the book that I have written, completing and releasing an album before my 30th birthday on the 30th of June seemed a rather achievable goal to aim for after declaring that it would finally see the light of day this year.

except nobody was informed of the release until late on the 30th June, when I sat down in Byte Burger in Alexanderplatz, Berlin, with my girlfriend and finally found myself gifted with wi-fi.

the album had already been online for over 24 hours, and as my sinister phone connected i had to fend off a barrage of facebook birthday greetings before I could finally announce to a small portion of the world that my first opus was among them.

as we were setting off on our journeys last thursday, album set and ready to launch, I did not conceive such an issue occurring, although we had not booked into a hotel with free wi-fi as we had on our jaunt to Iceland, I imagined that I would be checking my emails every time we sat down to eat, I did not imagine that it would be a struggle to use my credit card every time we sat down to eat, with numerous bars, restaurants and train ticket machines only accepting cash, let alone leeching off a bountiful supply of complimentary cyberspace.

by contrast, Rekjavic was overflowing with gratis googling and my credit card tailor made for well-travelled transactions was welcomed almost anywhere, whilst the majority of Berlin was depleting our dwindling fund of paper money at almost every turn as the city seemed to be stuck somewhere in the Eighties (although the lack of dividing wall and my advancing years seemed to argue otherwise).

and so concludes my masterclass in how not to market an album successfully, remember to leave your worries and your mobile network at the airport and abandon all contact with social networks, heck, even old fashioned means of communication may not be possible if you haven't got enough Euros for a postcard and stamp.

but now back in the UK, I can finally publish this post and possibly hop on the campaign trail.

(did i mention that i have an album out?)

touch it, bring it

well, having made my intentions clear to try and unearth some of my previous recordings, i have failed to spend any time doing so.

and for that i apologise.

but the good news is that the time that i have not spent searching out the far flung seperate stems of my past endeavours has instead been spent creating brand spanking new music for you, or possibly for me (well, some of the time, not all of it, i have also spent time reading and reviewing and other stuffs)


yes, yet another piece of the puzzle that is Giles Babel has been put together, and this time it is probably the most accessible snippet of music that i have ever produced, being far more straightforward and less ambient than other sound experiments, and even my girlfriend actually says that she likes it, which is a rarity, and may have a little something to do with the sampling of Busta Rhymes' Touch It (which in turn had sampled Daft Punk's Technologic) and giving her something recognisable to grasp on to, and talking of recognisable samples, yes, that is also Yoda at the very start of the track.




and i'm entirely happy with the way this came together quickly, it is not quite as dark and brooding as most of my tracks tend to be, introducing a playfulness to the blend, and yet it still sits alongside my latest collection of tracks comfortably.

enjoy!

credit where it's due:
main image by Cameron Stewart

you do love me

it was as a special valentines day treat that i released a free download of VCR, a cover of the XX song, on february 14th 2010

(back when i was still loading my music up to fileden for sharing)

and last week, nearly two years on from its initial debut i received an email from my soundcloud account informing me that that same song had reached its limit of 100 downloads.

ok, i'm only a small dust particle blowing around in this indescribably huge music business, what i do, i do for fun, and as a hobby, as a passion.  i don't imagine a career as a musician being forthcoming.  but for one of my tracks to be on the hard-drives, iPods or iPhones of 100 people, that is something of a milestone that i am proud to have achieved.

i was thrilled when my remix of The Enemy went global, and bloody astounded when my remix of Radiohead was downloaded something like 5000 times in its first week, and it may be a slow burner, but this cover version is clearly something that at least 100 people felt strongly enough about to click that little download tab that has now been disabled.



with 2053 plays to date, i am still extremely proud of how this track in particular has performed, and the fact that it has completely outshone my spoken word version that i created after my girlfriend cringed all the way through the original version i created and insisted it would be much better if i did not sing.

of course, with just 3 downloads and 82 plays to date, the spoken word version is still available to download for those that may wish to sample it for themselves



which also leads me to wonder if i should not have listened to her when i chose to make a video for the spoken word version and not my sung version, if i can still find the remains of the video on my crippled computer i may need to do something about redressing the balance and restoring it to the most favoured interpretation of VCR.


so thanks guys, thanks whoever you are that have enjoyed my tracks so far, i know i've been rambling on about other things on my blog and really have not produced enough new music recently, but hopefully you'll be sticking around

(and i love you too)

Tinnitus Awareness Week 2012

i don't buy the red tops on matter of principle

but many people that i know do, and i will still find myself flicking through the pages of absurd, lowest common denominator news and celebrity tittle tattle

so it is with some surprise that i occasionally find The Sun actually broaching a serious subject that more people need to be aware of, it is just such a shame that the real story they should be covering is always so brief

and as we near the end of another Tinnitus Awareness week, i thought i should do my duty to highlight the problem again, after my initial piece published in 2010

it was also in 2010 that i read a short article regarding Black Eyed Peas head honcho, producer and solo artist, Will.i.am, admitting that he was suffering from tinnitus, a high pitched ringing in the ears that is caused by prolonged exposure to loud music, and is common among musicians, DJs, clubbers and gig-goers

sadly the article swiftly shifted the focus onto his much-rumoured relationship with Cheryl Cole and his staunch support of that years X-Factor contestant, Cher Lloyd (an expanded article, including more name dropping, but also an opinion from The Sun doctor can be found here)



and then, just last week, almost perfectly timed to coincide with the annual campaign to highlight the causes and prevention of Tinnitus, N-Dubz lead and now solo-artist, Dappy revealed that due to his severe tinnitus he has now had small speakers installed around his bed to play soothing background noises, so that he is less aware of the constant ringing that is most obvious, and often frustrating, when you realise that you can no longer hear 'silence'.

of course, the newspaper was more interested in getting there jolleys by mocking his band's music and thinking up a shockingly bad rhyming headline rather than providing any real support or advice for anyone that may find themselves in a similar situation to Will.i.am and Dappy.

suffering since 2004 myself, i was relieved when i was first handed a leaflet about earplugs while at Glastonbury, not feeling quite so alone and happy to be pointed in the right direction for where to find advice and suitable hearing protection

and i believe that as a duty to fans and gig goers, more should be said about the causes and effects of Tinnitus so that people can hopefully spot the signs early enough to spare themselves the fate shared by not only Dappy and Will.i.am, but also Bono, Trent Reznor, Pete Townsend and Moby, among many others





more information about Tinnitus and Tinnitus Awareness Week can be found in this article by the great Eddy TM and on the British Tinnitus Association website

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

oh yeah


the christmas tree is up, personally picked and felled in the beautiful landscapes of Morrison's carpark

so it is about that time of year again where i whip off my kit and and allow you to download (for free, i know it has been a tough year for you) my cynical christmas single

and since we are living in a more environmentally aware age, you will be pleased to know that i have been recycling this song since 2008, and that this wonderful digital download has not been manufactured in china and transported across oceans by carbon monoxide fumes

with every year that passes, my sentiments that i sarcastically put into this song strengthen, sick of the christmas that we are having marketed at us every late october through december


help yourself

and please feel free to share



Hunchbakk - www.xmas.com




thanks

paint it black

oh yes, the black paint is out.

and i am back in the attic.

way back when we first moved in we were painting practically everything white, but after a visit to a mate's flat, we saw how well darker colours could look in certain situations and locations.

whilst the aim is to keep most of the house bright and breezy, the attic is a different prospect entirely, it will be my sanctuary, and possibly the boldest decorated room in the house since my girlfriend keeps nixing my proposed murals for other rooms.

yet it does feel slightly odd bringing darkness into what was a rather unbelievably spacious looking attic space, but it will be worth it once all the ideas are in place and come together properly.

my toy collection is growing steadily with occasional additions thanks to charity shops and car boot sales.

and now we are raising questions over what will be done with the fireplace in the front room, i suggested the exposed brickwork should be painted white.... my girlfriend suggested we paint it black.

and i think she may be right

Paint it Black (Paradigm Remix)

before the memory fades

i still can't believe that a week ago Enfield was the heart of trouble kicking off as riots took over the capital for a second night, it felt bizarre and terrifying that this could be happening in my home town and that the few clips that were circulating on the news were of places that i walk past virtually on a daily basis, so familiar, yet so different, transformed by the presence of riot police and organised chaos

thankfully things seemed to have calmed down now, but last week, amidst all that was going on, i tore myself away from the computer screen and wrote a short poem on the feelings that had been stirred inside me, this week, as situations were looking worse, i began expanding on this idea, and on others, to produce a few pieces of music to reflect the times and the tension

this piece is still slightly unfinished, it needs a little more tweaking and polishing to get it up to scratch, but i wanted to put it out before the memories fade


Riot Music EP: Track 1 (unfinished) by Hunchbakk

meeting a hero.

perhaps it is slightly old fashioned to pass on a demo CD to someone.

i like to think of it as nostalgic instead.


and this is the story of how, with clammy palms, i handed over my CD to Eddy Temple Morris yesterday:




so perhaps my own self-promotion has been a little bit lax of late, perhaps my own musical work ethic has been a little lax of late, i have become accustomed to the truth of the mater that these things will happen when moving into a home, my own home, with the other half (well, half hers too actually)

the spare bedroom has one blue wall and one white wall that i have taken it upon myself to paint, the remaining wall is still that nasty possible-magnolia-really? colour that it has been since we moved in, i would have painted it except she has talked about stripping the textured wall paper from the walls and i don't want to have painted it all for nothing

and yes, the room does actually have four walls, but one is entirely taken up by fitted wardrobes, although i did once consider painting them

but this isn't a case of decoration, this is more a matter that i fully intend to move all my kit into that room and it become my little haven to hide in and create whilst she watches television downstairs, but for now the computer still sits around downstairs, leaving my creativity rather stunted when she turns the tv on

plus, once you consider all the time i actually end up watering the garden, cleaning this, washing that, cooking something, and a whole bunch of other household chores that i hadn't really anticipated yet feel duty bound to complete so i don't end up living in a complete shit hole, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to fire up the machine and start manipulating sounds

and with all this repeatedly happening since last september, why should i waste an opportunity to burn a number of tracks i am proudest of and pass them along to one of my all-time musical heroes?!

Eddy TM would be DJing as part of Akira The Don's album launch party, and Eddy TM is a DJ that i have huge love and huge respect for, and i am extremely proud that he has played one of my remixes on his long running Xfm show, aptly named The Remix

so i pondered the structure of the CD, settling on an equal mix of original material and remixes, including The Enemy remix that he had already aired, and a rejigged Akira The Don track, since it only seemed appropriate

now, i have been training myself to not act like a complete fanboy when meeting famous people, but those that i hold in the highest esteem still cause an outbreak of hysterics in me, and it was no different when Eddy walked past me, i wasn't even facing him, and yet i felt his prescence (or perhaps caught him in the corner of my eye) and my heart skipped a beat

the plan was to grab a little chat with him and try and retain a sense of composure, but the gig moved swiftly and i would have felt that i was disrespecting the performer and Eddy himself if i tried to catch his attention and hold a conversation during a gig

and so there was nothing left to do but approach him whilst he DJed, seriously, the guy is a consummate professional, graciously accepting the CD from me and even holding a slightly disjointed rhetoric as he cued up and mixed tracks whilst observing that i wasn't going anywhere just yet

i introduced myself, told him how much i thought of him, allowed him to do what he had to do, and then continued to tell him that he had played a track of mine before, at which point Eddy took a little more notice, looking over the almost unreadable tracklisting in the poor lighting and acknowledging that, yeah, he remembered it

he then remarked that he thought we had met before, blimey! either he is an extremely gracious person making a lucky guess, but i believe that i saw recognition in his eyes, i didn't expect for him to remember at all,  it must have been a good couple of years ago at least, but i'll quite happily live with the belief that Eddy TM not only is a great DJ, but also a great human being with superhuman skills of recollection

we briefly discussed the artwork of the promo, that he loved, and that i admitted to half-inching and not really being able to claim as my own, and then i said i would leave him to it, he had a job to do after all, and i left beaming...

i hope that he will give it a listen and i hope that he will enjoy it, i would be bloody ecstatic if he saw fit to air anything from it but that is regardless, the most important thing is that he is something of a hero of mine and that in the two brief moments that i have been able to converse with him, Eddy has been nothing less than a complete gentleman and an all-round nice guy

and i couldn't ask for anything more than that when meeting a personal hero

Akira The Don - Music of the Spheres ft. Mary Turner (Hunchbakk's dirty elbows mix) by Hunchbakk

a tribute to Gil Scott-Heron

i can't remember exactly how long ago it was that i first heard Gil Scott-Heron's music or all the circumstances around it

i do remember that i was crossing the A10 on my bike, at the lights just outside the tyre place

i do remember that it was being played on my minidisc player (immediately dating my memories somewhat) and would have probably been part of a radio show that i had recorded so that i would have something worthwhile to listen to on my way to and from work, most likely either Xfm's Remix or Steve Lamaqc's monday night show on Radio 1

i do remember being so taken in by the track that i skipped the minidisc back to listen to it again, and used my clever little player's editing function to seperate the track and mark it as something of note and something i would want to revisit

i do remember being momentarily amazed by 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', simply in awe of, and fascinated by, everything about it

that ever so simple, almost tribal drum beat that sounds throughout

the spoken words, passionate poetry that was underpinned by the evocative percussion that built the sparse track into something oh so powerful and unbelievably unique

it was bold and daring and spoke to me in ways that no other music had done before


i didn't know that it was some 30 years old or so

i didn't know of Gil Scott-Heron until that point


i didn't rush out to instantly explore his back catalogue, but i looked into his past and his music and found something that i felt a real connection to

i couldn't name you all of his albums or recite you all of his lyrics, in all honesty, i have only probably heard just a handful of his tracks, but what i have heard was enough to inspire me


i do think the world is a little emptier without Gil Scott-Heron in it, but at least we still have his music and his influence that will long outlive him


with that in mind i decided to create my own music tribute to the late great Gil Scott-Heron, based upon the classic The Revelution Will Not Be Televised

i did try something else first, trying to create a looped up and sampled backing to sit under the vocals, but it didn't feel true enough to his spirit

it is quite simple in form, as perhaps it should be, and i hope that Gil Scott-Heron will never be forgotten

Giles Babel - go crazy (a tribute to Gil Scott-Heron)

the curious case of odd future

it seems to be getting quite cramped here in this music industry with all this hype surrounding Odd Future taking up so much room.

things have been bubbling up for quite a while now, and it must have been the middle of last year as they were dropping their second mixtape that the words Odd Future first connected with me.

but in the past month or two everything seems to have come to a head for the hip-hop collective as talk of their name and of their members appears to be absolutely everywhere, everyone wants a piece of them, and in the last two weeks alone Odd Future seem to have cemented their current reputation with an NME cover piece and a riotously recieved showcasing slot at Camden Crawl.

and as a person in tune with current trends and eager to latch onto the newest and most exciting music before it is embraced by the wider world, it may surprise you to know (as it sure surprised me) that i have never even heard any music by Odd Future.

i'm pretty sure i should like them, purely the fact that the groups full given name is Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All and that among their members are the fascinating and ridiculous monikers Tyler the Creator, Hodgy Beats and Earl Sweatshirt is enough to light the blue touch paper for me.

Yes, i've read the reviews, they've been hard to avoid, and i'm even aware of the bizarre little news story that Earl Sweatshirt had gone missing from the line-up for months, only to be traced to a 'therepeutic centre' on a Samoan island.

i even decided to scroll through my generic mp3 player, and it turns out that i do have Odd Future's Radical mixtape downloaded from last year, as well as tracks from Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and the whole mixtape 'Nostalgia, Ultra' by Frank Ocean that dropped in February this year, yet i have still never knowingly listened to any of these tracks.

but it isn't just the hype-mongering NME that are flying the flag for Odd Future, an innordinate amount of hipster blogs and even America's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon are more up on things than i am.

so, with the possible exception of my girlfriend, who listens to Geoff Lloyd on Absolute, am i really one of the last people on the planet to tune into Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All?

i think it's about time that i popped in my headphones to rectify this glaring oversight and see if i believe the hype.

Tyler The Creator (Odd Future) - Splatter

reBirth

the text was from Mike Straight, it read:

do u want ur computer back?

or words to that effect


this was practically a month ago, and my poor machine had been in respite for a dreadfully long time before that, and i had shunned it terribly, so very sick of even contemplating dealing with all the hissy fits it tends to throw and the bouts of illness that it has been prone to.

other things were keeping me busy, moving was one of them, and then decorating after that

but as time has worn on and i have settled, it became abundantly clear that i was lacking something from my life


while the girlfriend seems quite content with the television for company to wile away an evening, the hateful telly-box leaves me feeling quite empty and wasted if i am sat in front of it for too long

and it is times like these that i need to delve into my musical endeavours, though hardly an accomplished musician, i do feel a sense of acheivement when i have been able to create something

some attempts are more succesful than others, some tracks have travelled round the world, while others languish incomplete on my hardrive


when i'd handed my computer over to Mike, the only thing that really mattered to me was salvaging a handful of the tracks that i had been working on before it's almighty crash, these tracks were not Hunchbakk tracks, they were a sound of freedom and experimentation, they made very little sense and were purely something i had messed around with for the sake of messing around with and trying new and different things

i wasn't entirely sure what to do with these tracks, i hadn't played them to anybody, i didn't particularly feel the need to as i was unsure that anyone would actually understand them, but they were a new identity and a new outlet for my creative frustrations

when the computer was returned, it was accompanied by a handful of dvds of all the data that Mike had managed to salvage from the diseased beast, including all the unreleased tracks, all disjointed and fractured and leaving me with the humpty dumpty-esque task of putting them back together again, as the files used are scattered amongst the many gigs of data that had been building in the files on my computer


and so we are coming to the end of the tale, and to the reBirth, a new light on the dark days and a new realisation to actually organise the way my music files are saved incase of another such unnatural disaster

it will take time to restructure those un-lost pieces of musical experimentation, but in their stead i decided to let loose a small taster track that was put together over the course of a few hours last saturday, built only using samples that came with a computer music magazine my father bought me for christmas, rediscovering a little simplicity and refusing to commit days to refining a three and a half minute track when i am less than refined myself

witness, the reBirth of Giles Babel

Giles Babel - The reBirth Of A Footsoldier

Freewheelin' once again

last week, the Enfield Advertiser ran my little feature on my mate Dion last week, the atricle has been spruced up by the editor a little (as is his want), and we also saw the return of the exceptionally bad headline!!

and since it's not very often i'm playing catch-up with the paper, here is the feature in it's former glory

The Freewheelin' Troubadour
or as the paper tilted it
Troubadour pulls power wheelies...
(groan)

a man with interests very close to my own heart has been following his dreams and desires to creatively produce works for anyone willing to pay attention to them.


The Freewheelin' Troubadour's latest venture has been publishing a collection of poetry accompanied by visuals contributed by a select number of artists.


made available for free, "Freewheelin’ in Monument Valley & the American Offerings" can be downloaded as a pdf, with a limited number of books also circulating, thanks to the genorisity of those that donated towards the costs of publication.

the project was helped to fruition with a fundraising gig in august, and the finished article was celebrated with another night of music and poetry in october, both gigs curated by and featuring readings from the Troubadour himself, held at The Victoria in Mile End.


Originally hailing from Enfield himself, by his 20s Dion Power had been displaced in Cheshunt where he began conversing in the musical circles that were enriching the current Hertford scene, eventually finding himself managing bands and DJing.


When The Freewheelin' Troubadour persona originally surfaced it was of a poetic soul, and his prose was featured on his own myspace blogs.


but owing his adopted namesake to Bob Dylan and surrounded by local musicians, such as The Knaves and The Black Tricks, it would not be long before these ideas were realised musically and a sole CD  entitled '10 minutes of darkness' was composed alongside a number of borrowed band members and was distributed in 2007, before a similar vision found form in late 2008 when the Freewheelin Troubadour began fronting his own band that sadly proved to be shortlived.


What followed was a soul searching road trip across america that found creativity reaching new heights via an amassed sense of freedom and an abbundunce of new found inspirations, and it is the poems from these few months that make up the short collection, "Freewheelin’ in Monument Valley & the American Offerings".


His return to London began with a search for somewhere to live, continued with looking for willing collaborators, and with the book now launched, The Freewheelin Troubadour is still searching for means and ventures to make his voice heard, whether it is through spoken word readings, organising gigs or an upcoming documentary that will be a testament to everything achieved so far.

to download your own copy of the book, head to to the funpowder plot

and as an extra treat, here is also a rarity for you, my own remix of The Night That I Die, the original of which was on the 2007 CD '10 minutes of darkness'

The Freewheelin' Troubadour - The Night That I Die (Hunchbakk Remix)

Lost little Orphan Boy

can you believe NME stuck out another list feature t'other week??

well i can, one week into the new year and their first issue is yet another bloody list!

admittedly, this time i was a little intrigued to see what was going on tho, The 100 Greatest Albums You've Never Heard didn't seem to be their usual tack and it seemed to hold a lot of potential to actually be an interesting rundown

still unwilling to take such a stupid risk and stick my hand in my pocket for a copy, i instead headed off to the library, that actually let you hang around, even sit down, and enjoy a selection of current magazines (screw you mr Newsagent, and your 'this is not a library' Apu-isms)

and while i was expecting to find a bunch of musos educating the uneducated on a plethora of albums that for some reason or another never actually got released, what i instead found was quite a well informed countdown that had been contributed to by NME writers and rock stars alike, all revealing their own personal favourite albums that are likely to have slipped under most people's radars

yes, it is still another list that has been cobbled together, and with celebrity contributers it has probably meant that the NME writers have put even less effort in that usual, but regardless, it actually held up as an informative issue, and it was interesting to dip into and flick through, especially when there were a handful of modern choices among them

i was pleasantly surprised to see Clor topping the list (tho i'm not sure if the placings actually had any real relevance) and at 57 was another band name that rang a bell

Orphan Boy's 2008 album, Shop Local had been picked out by someone i forget now... and i couldn't fathom for a little while why the band's name sounded so familiar, i didn't remember following the band at all and continued scratching my head

but then it came to me, that i still have this very album tucked away somewhere among all the other CDs that didn't excite me very much, that had been sent to me from glasswerk to review

the album hadn't had much of an impact on me, but its inclusion in the 'lost' list intrigued me and had me questioning my own judgement, so having dug the album out and given it another spin, perhaps it is due a second opinion

afew tracks in and i wasn't exactly offended by it, but nor was i thrilled, it sounded very standard indie fare that was unlikely to set the world alight...

so what exactly did i have to say about it first time around tho?

a quick google pulled up....

'The more you are subjected to, the fewer bands sound truly original, and perhaps that is exactly the point with this album, a repeat listen reveals very strong influences and sonic identities that can be traced back to a lineage of Great British bands including The Clash, Oasis, Sex Pistols and Arctic Monkeys, to name but a few.

Strummer style vocals. Alex Turner style delivery. Ramshackle Libertine-esque guitars. A Kooks pop sensibility. The list goes on. and on.

Lazy comparisons they may be but its far from a negative review for the band, many of the tracks on here are deserving of ‘stand-out’ status but the album seems to get lost within itself as tracks charge off in different directions, pulling the album apart instead of finding a focus'

and i must admit, that even with the passing of time, and a re-evaluation given recent light, i couldn't agree more with my initial review, some tracks are big enough to have found them a place on rock n rolls map alongside The Courteeners, but it just wasn't meant to be...

Orphan Boy - Satellites available on the album Shop Local

is it too late to moan about Matt Cardle?

muchos congratulations are in order for Biffy Clyro, who in the year of our Lord two thousand and ten, managed to land themselves the verily celebrated Christmas number 1 slot

except somebody else was actually singing their song, and he was at number one


so unless you've been living under a rock as big as Simon Cowell's ego, you should be well aware of Matt Cardle and his gawd-awful rendition of Many of Horror

oh, hang, it's When We Collide is it? i'm sorry, i was mistaken

not that it matters a jot but i am not happy about this

and i think it was the wrong choice for a number of reasons

first off, it sounds terrible, and to be honest i think that should have actually been the final decision made, it is a terrible version of the song, full stop. end of discussion.

except i shall discuss a little further, seriously, if Monsieur Cardle had played it straight and given us an off-the-bat acousticy version then perhaps i may have been a little more forgiving, but squeeling the song and bringing in a rather obvious attempt at a 'large' x-factor chorus was just a stretch too far and the whole thing tumbles down because of it

perhaps this cover version was supposed to bolster Cardle's 'real' credentials and work an angle not yet exhausted by x-factor winners, attempting to secure those 'real' music fans deluded and foolish enough to continuously watch week in and week out yet couldn't give a flying toss about following the eventual winner's newly launched career... if only i could believe that Dannii Minogue and Matt Cardle spent evenings in the judges house blasting out Only Revolutions, arguing whether Puzzleis superior to Infinity Landand discussing whether Living's A Problem Because Everything Dies would be a good choice for the live finals

and the most convincing argument i could possibly make for this crime against music is the entirely debauched ill-fit of the whole thing, those that know Biffy Clyro also know of their struggles and their resilience against the turgid tide of the music industry, being one of the rare breed of bands that grew naturally away from the glaring eyes of fat-cat label bosses intent on profitability and only found mainstream success with their fourth album, slowly and steadily cultivating a fanbase that has taken them from cult-favourites to an arena-visiting touring schedule.



it is this hard-working ethic that sets Biffy Clyro apart from the overnight success guaranteed by the X-factor, but at the same time it also serves as a shining example of how far the Kilmarnock boys have come through years of persistence that has some how put them on Simon Cowell's radar and seen a single that entered the charts at the low end of the top 40 when it was originally released 11 months prior to the Christmas chart battle, landing at a rather respectable number 8, in addition to penning the festive season's chart topper and netting themselves a ridiculous pile of royalty cash from the surprisingly popular x-factor atrocity

and while it is hardly the circumstances that any Biffy fan would have reasonably envisioned, i couldn't possibly begrudge Biffy Clyro this current level of success (and ridiculous wealth)

Biffy Clyro - Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies
available on the album Puzzle

delayed by snow? stuck in the post?

i try to be creative

i also try to be giving


and at no other time is this more appropriate than at christmas.

i have already displayed my dismay at not being able to get an actual 'christmas single' ready for the past couple of years, but by way of consolation, and arriving just a day late is the newest track i have created, inspired by this year's Cage Against The Machine campaign

Cage Against The Machine - 4'33" (Hunchbakk's personal experience of tinnitus mix) by Hunchbakk

this is my own interpretation of John Cage's 4'33", and the main inspiration behind it was Eddy TM's involvement with the campaign to take 4'33" to Christmas number one, and how sales of the single would benefit a number of charities, including the British Tinitus Association, of which Eddy is a patron.

so instead of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, or a 4 and a half minute soundtrack of my surroundings as some of the remixes have been, i decided that i should emphasise the tracks links to tinnitus, and try to reproduce what my tinnitus actually sounds like, to convey the discomfort and annoyance caused by my own suffering from tinnitus.


for the most accurate results, go about your daily life as usual and listen to this track at random moments throughout the day and night... at any given moment i will go from barely being able to notice my own tinnitus, to having a sudden and increased ringing in my left ear that will gradually fade over a short length of time, sometimes i am aware of a faint ringing in my ears, other times i am not, but it is most noticable when experiencing what should be silence



-PLEASE DO NOT LISTEN TO AT LOUD VOLUMES-




other remixes of 4'33" are also available to listen to on the Remix Against The Machine soundcloud page, and for further reading and food for thought, may i point you in the direction of Eddy TM's own musings on this years yuletide chart battle, and his annoyance at not only CATM's lowly chart placing but also a lack of support and concern from certain quarters

titus groan

my foul tempered and life-support assisted computer has been a real burden on any kind of creativity that i was intending to display, another year, another christmas and i'm ashamed to say that i have nought new to offer anybody by way of a musical present.

that isn't to say that i haven't thought about it (after all, i am a thinker and not a doer)

and somewhere on my flatlining hardrive is my follow up to www.xmas.com, intended to be released in 2009, but with each fleeting moment i assume that it shall remain an incomplete idea that recoils in Sony Acid

it is a cover version of sorts, and the more thought i give to it, the more i see it as something that was never likely to have acheived fruition

much more likely to be within my grasp was the notion of another cover version, my own attempt at John Cage's 4'33" that i was rather delighted to have thought up when the Christmas number 1 campaign was still in its infancy and is now being actively encouraged, but quite simply i just haven't found the time (all 4 minutes and 33 seconds) to work on it properly, combine this with the fact that my girlfriend's laptop seems to make an awful lot of noise when it records and it leaves me falling short of the creative vision i had in mind

and so it goes, i have ideas, i consider cover versions, i play out in my head a way to make it sound like my own, give each track a Hunchbakk stamp that makes it recognisable as clearly being one of my interpretations, i did manage it with the xx's vcr, i also made a start on a cover of a rialto song, and i'm still certain that my eventual version of 'many of horror' while be a darn sight better than that wet squib currently being offered up by Matt Cardle (seriously, why?)

but in terms of a festive treat for right now, i'm bringing back www.xmas.com, and shall keep bringing it back until amazon or hmv see fit to use it in their christmas advertising campaigns and send a little money my way

if they want it, they'll have to pay for it, but for everybody else the track is available to download absolutely free (just like all my music to date has been) and this year is the first year that the track is available via soundcloud, so please feel free to share it around and spread the cynical christmas cheer

   www.xmas.com by Hunchbakk

not paying

it's clear we live in a fickle world.

i was one of many subscribers that helped Marina Gasolina's debut solo single cause a mini stir among the blogosphere.

it just seems such a shame that those willing to give exposure to Marina's talent in an online forum weren't quite so keen to turn up in person for a free gig when Marina Gasolina hit Brixton's The Rest Is Noise last week.


the bar hosting the gig is probably best known as a place to hook up with friends and knock back a few drinks before gigs at Brixton Academy, me and my brother found ourselves stood at the bar at a little after eight, waiting to get a pint among a whole bundle of Deftones fans and then trying to find a spot to perch and wait out the inevitable exodus that would occur.

sure enough, come nine o'clock, the punters still inside the Rest Is Noise were actually outnumbered by the bar staff.


and as there didn't seem to be an awful lot of activity on the tiny stage i became a little concerned, and was uncertain if that really was Marina Gasolina sat just a couple of feet away from us.

it was Marina, although i didn't know this at the time, she certainly looked different from the last time i had seen her hanging around at an M.I.A gig at London's ICA, but all of this is regardless - it had now gone 9 and i was starting to wonder if anything was even gonna happen and started to fret that we may have had a wasted journey to the far flung end of the Victoria Line for nothing.


instead of approaching the maybe Marina i thought it best to avoid embarrassment by simply asking at the bar if the gig was still going ahead, at which point i was told that she would likely be on once it had picked up again, probably about half 10, going on 11.  something that wasn't entirely evident from the details of the event that i had previously seen that simply said the gig was 8 - 12.

a little flummoxed by this, i ordered the next two pints, hoping we could make them last otherwise this 'free' gig was going to work out pricier than i imagined since i was buying for both me and my artistic (translated as currently unemployed and broke) brother, and more importantly i actually had no intention of getting drunk at all and knocking back beers was hardly gonna achieve sobriety


so how exactly do you make a pint of beer last an hour and a half?

by providing enough of a distraction by raiding the bar's table full of games! that's how!

Connect 4, despite it's simplicity and the fact we had to substitute fingers for missing red counters if the game wore on too long, probably kept us going the longest, this may also be down to the fact that not all of the pieces for Frustation and Downfall were in the respective boxes and we wasn't sure we'd have time to conquer the world playing Risk

the only other option left was a boardgame version of Blockbusters, sadly missing it's instuctions, and since it looked like quite a complex game to set up we simply made it up as we went along, unpeturbed by a lack of guidelines and possibly bolstered by a slight boredom of Connect 4

The Bishop was just about to start his Gold Run (that i was gonna have to make the rules up for) but the game finished in a forced draw when the band started up....

this was intended to be a Marina review, getting a little sidetracked here


midway through the first track, and just outside the streets of Brixton were suddenly awash with four thousand deftones fans, with a number of passing punters steadily streaming in and refilling the empty bar and giving Marina something resembling an audience to work with

perhaps it was down to the unfamiliarity of those gathered and the fact that the bar had been practically empty just five minutes previously, but it was hardly the performance that i was hoping for given her history (and mine) with Bonde Do Role

gone were the baile funk beats and the extrovert antics, in was a style more associated with Juliette Lewis and the Licks, backed by a more traditionally accepted band of guitar, drummer and bassist, Marina fronts the band with a tearaway attitude and a punk-tinged but pleasing singing voice, something that wasn't evident from her tenure with Bonde.

talk of working with producers such as Radioclit, had my salivating, but little of the electronic influence bleeds through into the show i witnessed, although, by her own admission, Marina had managed to spill an almost full pint over her sampler just as her set began, which may have left us without an important ingredient of live proceedings.

i could hardly chalk this one up as the most inspiring performances i have ever seen, but i pin most of that on my pining for even a nod towards old school Bonde Do Role, but despite the changes, Marina is still a rather unabashed entity, willing to work for a crowd, and when she flashes a cheeky grin or swivels her hips it is like a tease of the way things use to be, and i only hope that her audiences will grow alongside her newly forged solo career.

a free download of Marina Gasolina's debut single was featured in my post from earlier this month

paying (part 2)

and after the disappointment of M.I.A earlier in the week, to say that i was apprehensive about seeing Gorillaz at the o2 arena was a massive understatement.

even before the Maya debacle i was kinda concerned about how thing would turn out since past experience didn't exactly bode well for it.

i'd already documented my feelings about Blur's massive Hyde Park gigs and i was unimpressed with Gorillaz' drafted in headline slot at Glastonbury earlier this year, it was shambolic and rambling and lacked any real energy, when you combine this with the fact that i knew Flaming Lips would be much more entertaining over on the other stage, we reached the conclusion that we wouldn't bother to stick around to see if the Gorillaz set got any better

and i guess that brings the story pretty much up to date, with me spending the months since Glastonbury wondering if it could have been some hokum Damon Albarn curse that had been put upon me, i love virtually all the music the man touches, but so far 2 out of 3 live performances had disappointed me (with the exception being The Good, The Bad and The Queen in Victoria Park)

thankfully my misgivings were misplaced and i hadn't felt like i had thrown all of my money away in one week, virtually from the outset it was obvious that this would surpass the shoddy performance from the summer, there was a build up of genuine anticipation as opposed to the mix of curiosity and high hopes that flooded the fields of Glastonbury, and even tho we were on very familiar ground, with the similar starts to the set and a repetition of the same animation sequences we had already seen, it still didn't feel like we had seen this live show before, if anything it felt that glasto was the dress rehearsal and this was the real deal that we had been looking forward to

for a start, Damon Albarn was a lot more (for want of a better word) animated, actually taking to the stage and bounding among the performers instead of hiding behind his keyboards towards the back of the stage and trying to orchestrate a star spangled extravaganza, onstage at the o2 arena you could believe that he was truly involved in the project and followed this belief through by acting like a part-time lead singer between the expected guestspots

another fault i levelled at Glastonbury was the stop/start nature of the entire headline slot, lacking cohesion and causing immense boredom when the Pyramid Stage crowd were frequently met with silence, and this problem has been ironed out, leaving us with a perfectly flowing performance, all tied together with slick animation asides and always eyecatching backdrop videos throughout, creating one of the ultimate audio-visual experiences possible

not every guest performer was there with them, but this was inconsequential when considering the performers they had still managed to pull together and pull off without making the night feel like a charity fundraising gala show, it still felt celebrational but far from trite, the mood onstage was joyous and the crowd reaction was equally as enjoyable.

so, second time around Damon actually managed to steer a smooth course towards Plastic Beach, transferring the atmospheric album onto stage with a crew of veteran musicians, world spanning guests and a smattering of new blood, creating an almost perfect vehicle for his fictional bands career to date and at the same time making me a very pleased punter.

money well spent indeed.

 Gorillaz - Empire Ants (feat. Little Dragon)