Just another WordPress.com weblog
I love making greetings cards for people, trying to personalise them and give people something special…here are a few from the past:
For our immediate families I wanted to make the cards personally, I came up with a snowman theme because it meant I could go with a basic template and then customise them, here are the results:
I got very excited about Christmas this year and ended up overdosing on Christmas music and therefore developing sleigh-bell-tinnitus. I also did some Christmas card designs. We had the ‘hills and mountains’ one printed up to send to friends and family. Maybe I’ll save the others for future years, or get some sets printed up for sale next Christmas…
A few months ago me and my wife were asked to be godparents to two children of one pair of friends and one child of another. One can debate and disagree about whether the godless should accept such a responsibility, but ultimately we were honoured to be asked.
As these were special occasions I decided I wanted to make special cards and I came up with the two designs below, I hope they will be kept safe (and maybe even put in a frame!).
“Brian gave this 4/5.
This guy has been shitting weird sounds through the needle of the cosmos for bloody years now. He’s obsessed with Megalithic standing stones and has progressed from constructing burbling modular analogue kosmische sounds and mortifying dark ambience in the belly of the ambient techno heyday to the creepy, metronomic psychedelic pop of ‘Further Than You’ve Been Before’. The second disc is particularly notable as this is where he returns to the musical fray in the 00′s with his new Earth/spacerock obsession after working abroad with no stimulus for an itch of seven years. So if you like a spot of down-tuned doom/sludge dirge with some wild psychedelic leanings I think you may dig this CD. Turn it right the fuck-up to catch the full intensity of this funereal grind & allow the Skullflower-esque portentous fuzz take over your mind and ride it like the bitch it is. Your mind, yes, it is a bitch -i know what I’m-a-saying. The riff-tastic ‘Ultranaut’ is another head-mashing classic from the stable of Mark Williamson. The riff on this will sear right through your head and flop out the other side like electrified yoghurt man…..Numbered of 50 in a right beezer package old chaps…..”
Available via Bandcamp and Norman Records
Orders are now being taken HERE . Orders will dispatch from 18 April. Limited edition of 50. Get in quick!
I have recently being spending a lot of time with the music of Darren Hayman. As I write this I’ve just remembered we actually caught a short set by Darren at the Latitude Festival in 2008. I remember very much enjoying this but then failing to investigate Darren’s work further.
I’m not sure how but a few months ago I stumbled upon 2009′s Pram Town (credited to Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern), a loose concept album based around the Essex new town of Harlow. In fact I didn’t initially realise that the album was about Harlow but I’m proud to say that I did draw that conclusion before hearing the lyric ‘they were the best band to come out of Harlow’. The album was a perfect introduction to Darren Hayman, mainly acoustic the album also contains some electronic moments but, more importantly, some startling writing and lyricism. Darren has the rare gift of making the simple beautiful, of conveying sadness, optimism, despair and resilience using everyday language and simple chord structures. Few are capable of this, the most obvious comparison being the work of Pulp and Jarvis Cocker, although Darren Hayman seems to be able to be both more and less cynical than Cocker simultaneously.
Pram Town lead me to it’s follow up 2010′s Essex Arms. The second in a proposed trilogy based around Darren’s home (and my adopted) county. Essex Arms ventures away from Harlow and further into the Essex hinterland. It’s hard to pick highlights from this collection although the lyric, spotted as graffiti, ‘The Rayleigh boys will fuck up all of Southend’ and the melancholy ‘Dagenham Ford’ stand out. I am now looking forward to the third record in the sequence.
Also to look forward to (for me) is exploring Darren’s earlier work. I’ve had a couple of listens to his first solo LP, Table for One, but still need to get hold of his Great British Holidays EPs collection, the first Secondary Modern LP and his earlier work in the band Hefner as well as piles of other releases.
In the meantime we have January Songs. Darren has vowed to write and record a song every day in January, he has explained his reasons through a series of video diaries on the January Songs website. Each song is available for free download from Soundcloud for a few days, and thereafter for £1 from bandcamp. Darren has also managed to find time to make videos for all of the songs so far.
I find that what Darren Hayman achieves with a palette of guitars, ukuleles, various keyboard instruments, and shonky synths inspirational and I’m very excited about further exploring his work.
