Glacier Heart, my first vocal collaboration with rising star Ren Faye, has been reissued as a two-track digital single. I originally released the song in July last year, but it soon got lost in the quagmire of independent music on streaming services.
The new single features an updated mix of Glacier Heart and also comes with an instrumental b-side. We are incredibly proud of this song, and this time, it also seems to be getting heard – if you enjoy the Glacier Heart, please help spread the word!
Glacier Heart is available now via Bandcamp, as well as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, Tidal and Deezer – see https://linktr.ee/thelightdreams for streaming options. Spotify users can also hear the track as part of Joe Tavano’sRelaxing Indie Moodsplaylist.
Glacier Heart also has a video, which has recently been picked by by Angel in the Dark’s popular YouTube channel.
Aspects has been out in the world for just over two weeks now, and it has been streamed, downloaded and playlisted. As an independent musician working outside of the usual spheres, it is always so gratifying and rewarding to know that somebody in another part of the world has taken a moment to listen to my work.
Aspects was composed during 2020–2021; strange years for all of us. 2021 began with the tightening of pandemic restrictions, slowly followed by the (short-lived) hope that we would be returning to some kind of normality. A somewhat premature optimism, given the unprecedented circumstances. I had been working on new music at various points, for different projects – my vocal collaborations with Ren Faye, other potential collaborations and several tracks just for the simple love of making music.
I’ve often felt the best material often creates itself. Those moments when an idea for a piece of music seems to fall from the sky and comes seamlessly together, are the most satisfying – not because it doesn’t mean hours of toil, but because it is a fine example of creativity in action. It’s almost like some kind of magic. My normal process for recording an album is to begin with a title and concept, and work backwards from there. The process for Aspects was the complete opposite. Towards the end of last summer, I reviewed the music I had made over the course of the past year and discovered they all fitted perfectly together. I realised I had a solid album in the making.
As I worked on the tracks, I found various consistencies between them; common themes, moods and atmospheres. I had the music in mind when I took the cover photograph, on the west coast of Scotland in September 2021. I knew as I framed the shot, it was going to be the cover art.
Aspects is an album I am very proud of, both musically and from a production perspective, which is always the most taxing part of the process. It is an album for reflection and meditation; to allow one to travel in the mind and temporary escape the worries and uncertainties of the world around us. I had already set a release date when the dreadful, devastating situation in Ukraine unfolded. Although it felt insensitive to be releasing and promoting this project when a country is being destroyed – homes, families and livelihoods wrecked – but releasing the work or not wasn’t going to change what is going on. If anything, I might hope that anybody listening to the album enjoys a moment of escape and distraction.
Aspects is available to download via Bandcamp, and also comes with a digital booklet. You will also find it on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and Tidal for streaming.
My new album Aspects is released today as a digital download on Bandcamp and across popular streaming platforms.
Aspects was composed and recorded between December 2020 and February 2022. I wanted to return to my roots a little, with longer, flowing instrumental pieces with shades of dark and light. Aspects has a reflective and contemplative mood, but an overall tone of optimism. Music has the power to keep certain memories alive and fondly remembered times and places in check. Either as a listener or creator, music allows us to travel to many different junctures, and during troubles and worrying times like the present, that escape is vital. Why not take some time out for a journey…
I will soon be releasing a new instrumental album entitled Aspects – which I composed over the course of the past couple of years. The first track I’m previewing from the album is called Breaking Surface.
Aspects will be released digitally via Bandcamp and available on popular streaming platforms very soon – stay tuned for updates.
I’d like to say a big thank you to Colin Spencer who has premiered three of my tracks on his show Electrocurated over on Artefaktor Radio over the last three weekends.
Electrocurated show #151 included the title track from The Ministry of Machine Building played in it’s eight-minute entirety; show #152 featured Undisturbed (also from Ministry) as the penultimate track and this weekend, show #153 saw the exclusive first airing of Glacier Heart, my first track with vocalist Ren Faye (we’re currently working on more material for an EP release; watch this space…).
From classics to underground acts and emerging artists, Colin’s show brings together a vibrant mix of electronic music including synth pop, synth wave, instrumentals and dance/trance. I couldn’t ask for my music to be in better company.
The Ministry of Machine Building can be found on major streaming platforms and is available for download on Bandcamp.
Ahead of the release of The Ministry of Machine Building on Bandcamp this Friday, here is a new video for en edited version of one of the album tracks, The Hall of Machines.
Above is the second, short teaser for my conceptual instrumental album, The Ministry of Machine Building. I always create a digital booklet for my releases on Bandcamp – not only does this add a little value for money, but more importantly, the artwork and sleeve notes is, for me, an extension of the album. Even though I only release my music digitally, it’s important for me that each release has artwork and a ‘booklet’, just like a physical release would. Richard Hayes has written a special, short narrative that reinforces the album concept, and this is a short snippet.
The second full-length preview track from the album, Nightwatch, is now up on SoundCloud.
The Ministry of Machine Building will be released on 2nd July.
Finally, my recent collaboration with Ren Faye, Glacier Heart is now available on Spotify and Apple Music, and also has a new video.
I’m pleased to announce a new electronic album, The Ministry of Machine Building.
Starting points for musical projects often come in the most unexpected places.
Back in 2019, I watched HBO’s excellent – if harrowing – miniseries, Chernobyl. Arguably one of the most gripping and unsettling depictions of any real-life event I’ve seen, as well as being interesting, technically and politically. I still remember the Chernobyl disaster happening – in April 1986, I was eight years old, and recall how it dominated the news. My young mind couldn’t quite comprehend the reality of what was going on in that other part of the world (I’d witnessed enough tragedy already that year with the Challenger explosion in January), but I knew it wasn’t good. I was hearing certain words for the first time, such as “Reactor” and “Radiation”… and when you learn words that way, they stick forever.
I was so compelled by the dramatisation, I immediately bought Serhii Plokhy’s detailed book on the subject, Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy for some long overdue education on the matter. An absolutely fascinating read, but it was in Plokhy’s book that I first saw reference to The Ministry of General Machine Building – an impressive title if ever there was one! The ministry was a Soviet government organisation based in Moscow and was responsible for overseeing all aspects of USSR space exploration. Another ministry, the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, was country’s secretive bureaucracy which supervised the Soviet nuclear industry, hence the link to Chernobyl.
Sometimes the words or phrases on the page of a book will stand out, and I’ll repurpose them into a song title, but on reading about the two ministries, I knew there and then this had to be an album title! Of course, making an album about a nuclear disaster would be neither cheerful or tasteful, but a slight shortening of the title gave way to a whole new creative scope and allowed me to reposition the Ministry into a science fiction context. Thinking back to the scenes in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, I was soon imagining a dystopian factory-city in a state of perpetual nightshade; shift workers clocking on and off as they collectively work toward the creation of huge machines and sentient creations they did not understand. This needed to be like the soundtrack for a science fiction film yet to be made, and carry a story through the tracks.
So this was the spark that led to the composition of The Ministry of Machine Building over the past couple of years. The title track was one of the first pieces I worked on, but it laid dormant for many months before being resurrected, once I found a suitable direction for the album. While generally dark and moody, I wanted there to be a balance of heavy, layered industrial electronica, evoking assembly lines and thundrous mechanical processes, alongside some lighter contrasting pieces, almost like a brief moment of repose from the immense factory world.
When called upon to write some sleeve notes for the album, Richard Hayes has delivered a fantastic piece of writing – not sleeve notes in the traditional sense, but almost a short story; or an excerpt from a diary, leaving the reader curious for more…
I was not free. I knew that well. Building the machines that dominate our world was the focus of my life, and there could be no escape from that role. The machines of the modern age would bring coercion to our society, which was no less a constraint for those who constructed them.
The Ministry of Machine Building will be released on Bandcamp on 2nd July 2021. Previews to follow!
“Glacier Heart” is now available for streaming on Spotify, and a new video has been created for the song.
The track was recorded remotely – commonplace these days, but perhaps moreso during Covid times.
I have recently been composing tracks for potential songs, as it suddenly felt like the right time to test the water in this direction – but it had to be with the right kind of vocalist. Then I heard one of Ren’s tracks on SoundCloud and really loved her voice – we’ve been in touch for a while, but never discussed our music – I sent my demo over and asked if she would like to record some vocals for it… and in no time at all, she came up with these beautiful, enchanting lyrics and amazing vocals to go with it. It was one of those ‘perfect fit’ moments.
As an instrumentalist, I had never mixed vocals before, so this was an interesting new challenge, but I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound and the kind of cinematic atmosphere it should have. Having worked with other musicians in the past, I know how rewarding creative collaboration is, whether you are in the same room or working remotely – if you’re on the same wavelength, exciting things always happen, and that was definitely the case here. Ren and I are delighted with the finished track, and that has encouraged us to work on more pieces together, hopefully with a view to releasing an EP in the near future.
The Light Dreams 