the return of.

Something like sunshine was seeking to stream through the slithers left undefended by the black out blind in the spare room as I awoke from slumber in the spare room, driven to the second-hand ikea sofa-bed again by my fiancé's nocturnal wheezings and mumblings as a cold got the better of her and my desire to sleep undisturbed had got the better of me.

Yesterday was something special.  It really was going to take something to top that.

Oh, how about some international airplay?

The second-hand ikea sofa-bed was unwilling to relinquish me just yet, so I instead reach for my ageing gizmo and fire up the emails... A missive from half the world away causes seismic smiles to ripple through my body and across my face.  Those guys that had been good enough to seemingly pick my remix of The Enemy from thin air a number of years ago had pulled it out of the bag yet again.

Fraserhead and The Herbalist, fantastically named audio adventurers and known Anglo-philes had responded to a fleeting email I had dropped their way (their way being over 11 thousand miles away in Queensland, New Zealand) and said yes.

Yes. They would play my latest track. My miserable slice of realism. My dark downturned beat and it's message of ever promising negativity. In the land of sunshine and mystical sea monsters.

In some strange parallel universe that exists at least one sunrise away is a sunny Saturday afternoon that is soundtracked by 80s legend John Carpenter, pioneering proto-dubstepper Burial and myself, with my near-undanceable budget-tronica...

Stranger things have happened, but they don't always happen to me.

reviewed.

and so.  Just like the hunter becomes the hunted, the reviewer has become the reviewed.

Safely on silent in my pocket, my sinister phone was making noise on a friday afternoon.  Even with the quivering capabilities of a stone, it sent good vibrations into the world, alert after alert, favourite after favourite, retweet after retweet.

I reflected upon this briefly,  Shot Of Hornets: nice review, cheers!

strange, I don't remember reviewing those guys...

with meagre downtime I backtracked to that original tweet

January reviews.  featuring Me.

on Misfit City?  I was confused and concerned, I'd not written for this blog?  Had they half-inched a recent review and reproduced it without permission?

Far from it.

Sat at the peak of the page was an earth-shatteringly glorious justification of why I create art.  Digitally documenting my place in the world in words that astounded me.  Such kind and uplifting words.

'anxious water-tank electronica'

'perpetually uncomfortable budget-tronica'

'near-undanceable'

I feel I shall be using these as straplines for my music for a long time to come... superseding Akira The Don's beautifyingly bestowed 'Super-Ugly Beat-Stuffs' as my go-to quote of choice....  

Yet could this also be a career peaking?!  I brace myself for the Hunchbakk-lash to begin.

Stop, collaborate and listen

I make music

Or made music.

Or tried to make music at least.

Working mostly from loop and sample based software I tend to be drawn to the same sort of sound for my own output, time and time again, and having completed work on the debut album, feeling like I have encapsulated a point on my life, I would now like to move on and live more life.  differently.

I've tried action-packed team-ups before, primarily handling a few remixes of other artists, either through mutual respect or competitions, but when I considered the release of Anubis Horror, I also wanted to deliver some 'singles packages' to release alongside it.

Having moved in creative circles, I have crossed paths with plenty of talented people, many from Enfield itself, and so I reached out to a small bundle of people that I thought might be interested in either remixing an existing track of mine or creating something brand new from accapella spoken word poetry.  They were told that they had free reign to do whatever they liked, it didn't mind how much or how little remained of the original version, I was only looking forward to hearing a brand new interpretation of something I had a hand in creating, hearing something that had come from more than just me.

The end result.... just one remix came back, fully formed for inclusion on the Teenaging single, and I had to draft myself in to remix my own work, cutting, pasting, twisting and distorting my own poetry... and unsurprisingly they sound just like something I would produce.

But now here we go again, bored of searching the same job roles and vacancies on Gumtree I instead started looking for an opportunity to write songs with others

the opportunities were slim, but I made contact... and one chance came back wonderful and gleaming.

Since then we have conversed over email, shared a brief man-date in the centre of londinium to get to know each other and cross-reference ideas, and this week I have made a proper start on fleshing out some rough tracks that have been sent over to me.

It is still early yet, and who knows what may happen next, inspiration and ideals are elusive beasts, but I've got a good feeling about what is coming next.

wear Hunchbakk

Or more accurately, wear Giles Babel.

as anyone that pays any attention to this blog will attest to, I have never ever tried to charge a penny for any of the wonderful and occasionally peculiar sounds that I have constructed and concucted.

and to that end, I would like to introduce something that you can actually shell out for if you so wished.

it is my pleasure to present the very first in a collection of Giles Babel t-shirts that accompany my latest EP, "programmed to prevent war", that is to say that there is one image, one t-shirt, per track, all designed in collaboration with my talented little brother, Ian Byford, who has really outdone himself this time.








I'll let you guys in on a little secret, i've seen the trends in topman/river island/burtons/delete as applicable, you know the type, and witnessing the widespread obsession with instagram, I briefed my brother to produce the artwork in a retro-filtered vein to include in my very own online boutique.

it took a couple of back'n'forths to tweak it, including putting a more psychedelic spin on it rather than just manipulating the image to be a simple faux polaroid, but in no time it was ready, and that is the wonderful image that you see before you right now....

I am afraid that, unlike my music, the t-shirt does require payment if you would like it for yourself, but I think you will find that they are very reasonably priced.... (compare to topman if you must) is available in a wide choice of colours, and if you didn't wanna wear it then it is also available to buy as art prints, canvases and all manner of other things, even as a cheap as chips sticker to stick wherever you wish.

but enough of the hard sell

how about a little bit of storytelling

Or perhaps I'll save the story of the this image until another day (what a tease, i'm sorry)

doing everything and nothing

well, i would like to introduce you all to my very first unemployed blog post...

for just over a week now i have probably been the most active bum on the planet, refusing to let losing my job bring me down too much, so instead i have been trying to fill my usual work hours with as much as possible

this means that i have more time to make sure that the house is always tidy, i have finished checking and editing my NaNoWriMo novel, i've finished reviving and painting the cabinet that i found flytipped and shall now use in my geek room, i've reorganised messy drawers, i've gone out for long-ass bike rides, heck, i've done bloody loads of stuff, including getting my CV up to date and starting applying for new jobs

all in an attempt to not feel mopey and useless and bored, in fact, i'm quite enjoying all this extra time to do things that matter more to me, the only problem is that paying bills and a mortgage are also pretty high up on my list of priorities, but my time as a house-husband is in fact rather liberating, now if only it would stop raining long enough for me to get out and do some gardening!

despite this extra time, there are a handful of things that i haven't spent enough time on yet.

the first is blogging (hey, i've been busy with other stuff!)

the second is my music (hey, i've been busy with other stuff!) but as i was telling my brother the other day, music is a hard beast to tame, a couple of hours sat infront of a machine with the intentions of producing a groundbreaking piece of music will more likely result in being sat infront of a machine for two hours and still not be much further than when you loaded it up, indeed today i have tried to complete the final track of a Giles Babel EP and found myself going almost nowhere with it, and when you are trying to get the most out of every hour it is hard to accept that time can just slip away alongside any further achievement... but i'm sticking with it, don't you worry, maybe i'll have another crack at it after i've put the dishes away...

and the third...  i've done nothing at all to draw your attentions to the t-shirts that accompany my currently worked on EP, four tracks are complete, four t-shirts are complete, and yet, as of typing, i've only loaded one t-shirt up and have not even mentioned it anywhere at all...

in my defence, i had a lot going on. and in my defence, i've still got a lot going on. but getting the Giles Babel collection up to date needs to be another task that i sit myself down to complete


so before i waffle on too much i think i may leave it at that, you've had a little update, and i shall now think about making myself some lunch, putting away the dishes, hoovering the front room, maybe doing a bit of polishing, uploading the next three t-shirts in the collection, tackling that fifth and final track again and then perhaps i shall see you on the other side to discuss the t-shirt in the next couple of days perhaps...

so why don't i leave you with the first track, Poptarts and Battleships, from "programmed to prevent war" and a little subtle link to follow if you'd like to view the tee right now, and i'll be back with more info soooooon

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

better man - part 2

it is so often the case that the sequel is never as good as the original, but let's see if we can help to re-balance the theory as i sit around at work, with not much work to be done, and plenty of time to ponder over yesterday's blog post and what i intend to do with my life...

it is common for me to live in daydreams

and despite trying to do otherwise, i still spend more time thinking then i ever spend doing

but i am daydreaming in those moments that happen between moments, the moments that are of little consequence, bus journeys, walking to work and other occasions where you are in a transitional state, waiting, or moving, but not fixed and not dedicated to fulfilling a purpose, those are the times when my mind wanders and the fantasy life plays out

i put belief into these desires, that they could be true, that it will happen someday, that something is holding me back but, in time, i will make good on these flights of fancy


i have some more music to make, my Giles Babel persona has not been as prolific as i had wished, but when i do find the time to mess around for a bit i do start dabbling, because that is what Giles Babel does, he does not merely make music, he makes experiments and projects and tests without placing too much fear in the fact that it is not 'music'

and i hope to push myself and push boundaries a bit more when i eventually get my hands on a fancy little iPad and load it up with useful apps, i have played around with the ridiculously simple garageband while idling in an apple store, and researched a few other useful looking programmes that do not look beyond my own capabilities

the intuitive nature of the touch screen pitches the iPad and the desired music apps somewhere between a toy and a portable music creation tool, making learned skills look easy at the touch of a button and hopefully encouraging a playfulness in my own machinations and a freedom from restriction.

before then tho, i need to focus some energies on wrapping up that which i have already started, drawing a close on what should have been the debut Hunchbakk album that is long delayed, cracking on with this latest collection of Giles Babel sounds, and, as my brother reminded me and his followers, maybe i should be looking to finish up the SoundArt collaborative project that we started in december 2008 with the intention of creating a 12 track album over the following 12 months, but is still stalled on the 9th track that i have barely made a start on.


i shan't go making any wild claims that 2012 will be my year, a grand exclamation like that sets me up for too big a fall for my liking, but lets just take it as it comes and see what happens regardless.




credit where it's due:


that slightly bizarre image up there was half inched from a seemingly unrelated article and was stumbled upon when i searched for the term 'better man' in google images

stunted

it is far to easy to sit around and fester with stunted creativity, i'm stuck at work and feel that i haven't achieved too much today, despite penning a poem as a contribution to my family's hub of impulsive output, byford365, and now i sit here as i allow my mind to wander and string a few sentences together to form a worthwhile blog post.

what i am thinking about now are ways that i can be creative once i get out of here at 4 o'clock today, i am also wondering if i'm gonna get an absolute drenching between work and home as i watch the rain crash down outside.

i really need to pull my finger out and get working on my music and musical experimentation again, as me and my girlfriend chilled watching David Cronenburgh's Scanners yesterday, i felt inspired by a quote in the film, and shall probably fire up Acid when i get in (and possibly dry off) so that i can rip the audio i need, and then perhaps i shall just go back to basics and slowly build up something resembling a tune from the various sample packs and oddities that i have accumalated over the past few years.

so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that one hopefully some time soon.

and i also intend to finish off the fourth track of a five track set, under the guise of Giles Babel, the other four are already floating around in the ethereal realms of the internet, yet i want to gather them together and proclaim them to be a specific and titled unit, existing within the same realms of one another, instead of just being loose clumps of sound that rattle around harddrives and mp3 players with no real cohesion.

this fourth track may take a little while tho, i know how to make it, but the gathering of relavent resources is proving time consuming, and frankly rather boring, but i shall persevere, so that these five tracks may be classified as a collection, or perhaps an EP if you will.

and now i shall fill the remaining time til 4 with paperwork.

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)

cloud above me

i feel that i haven't got much to say, and that can never be a good thing

so i thought maybe i should say it anyway in the hope that it will inspire something a little more profound



i usually have a lot of things that i want to say

i never have enough time to compose my thoughts and ideas


that is usually my life

hurtling along like some bizarre rollercoaster, to fast for me to succesfully manage all that i hope to achieve, except this type of rollercoaster doesn't involve queuing for 50 minutes only for the whole thing to be over in just a couple of paltry minutes before heading off to another 50 minute queue or a pizza hut buffet

perhaps it isn't like a rollercoaster at all

no, i guess it really isn't


apologies for the rambling, i thought that if i could just spill out a stream of consciousness then i may hit the creative stride that i have lacked recently, so apologies for that too, to myself and to anyone else that may take an interest in anything creative that i produce

i haven't even managed to knock out a full review this week, tho i guess i should, as i have a number of CDs that need my thoughts chucked at them for glasswerk, i did slightly regurgitate a number of musings on the music of Daniel Haaksman for publishing in the Enfield Advertiser as i hadn't been in touch for a while, although sending the finished article as my girlfriend slept though Glee on monday night already feels as if it was weeks ago

i guess the only reason i'm choosing to write right now is so that my blog looks a little less barren, sadly i seem to have less and less time to get my thoughts across, although i suppose i have already said that and since time is a premium i should spend less time repeating myself

so, today was for relaxing, or doing something, anything, but typically i just can't get my head right, i've had a stab at putting together a new giles babel piece of music, but it just didn't come together as easily as i'd hoped it would, and other than that, i feel as if the world is slipping away from me as i sit around unsure of what i should really be spending my time doing and trying to not think about the biscuits that are open in the cupboard


i guess it's a blip, i'll throw myself into something else and maybe, just maybe have another biscuit, and hopefully it won't be too long until i'm pulled out of whatever hole it is that i am currently wallowing in

and i hope that the next time my blog speaks to you that it sings a more joyous, more coherent song than you and i have both had to endure today



credit where it's due:


i wanted a moody looking picture for this post, i found one yesterday but the computer wouldn't save it, i found a different picture today, it doesn't have much to do with anything i've said and i've no real idea what it is, but i like it and i found it here

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