First batch of demos (and more to come)
If you've been reading here for more than a few weeks, you may recall a previous post where I promised I would make available some of the demos I've recorded in the last few years. Well, it took a bit longer than I expected, but to reward your patience I herewith offer up the first instalment of recordings for your free download (and, hopefully, enjoyment).
I should mention at the outset that these tracks are all hosted at the Internet Archive, and that the links below point to the archive page for each track. The recordings have all been converted automatically into various audio formats, including the ubiquitous MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, so you can choose which one you wish to use (and I'd recommend the latter two, especially FLAC if you want the best quality).
Unless stated otherwise, assume that everything you hear on the recordings is me—that includes some background noises (e.g. rustles, creaks, knocks, etc.), as I haven't always cleaned these up. These recordings should really be considered "rough", but hey, you're getting them for free... :-)
- Sidings and branches - from the spring of 2005, one of my personal favourites. That's a real glockenspiel on there; the instrument is now unfortunately somewhat "trashed" after my daughter got her hands on it...
- Inner Roundabout Way - another 2005 song, intended as the first in a series of spoof "lost" Sixties songs by imaginary bands with silly names, but this one ended up the only track I completed for the aborted project. (The band, incidentally, was going to be called "Icarus' Wings"—a folk trio who decided to go electric and psychedelic, with mixed results. You be the judge.)
- Shell-like - again, from 2005, a sprightly ode to the delights of a seaside holiday in summer, with the odd unexpected lyrical twist.
- Christmas morning - Written and demo-ed in the late spring of 2002, just after I got married, this song's lyrics actually doesn't have much to do with the festive season, but it fits that time of year quite nicely anyway. Best of all, I entered the song into the Folk category of the 2002 UK Songwriting Contest, and it was a runner-up in the category - perhaps my finest hour to date? My wife Joy plays piano and synth "bells", but the guitar synth "pad" is me, as is everything else.
- All that I can do - The newest song of this batch, this jaunty number was written over August and September 2007 with the ukulele Joy gave me for Valentine's Day this year (aaaahhhh, it must be true love :-) ). This is a fairly rough-edged demo—two ukuleles and acoustic guitar—and please forgive any background noise you may encounter here and there. (This was also one of the first recordings I made on my Tascam 2488mkII multitrack, so I was effectively learning how to use it as I recorded this (still am, really).)
I should also point out that these recordings are all released under a Creative Commons licence (specifically, the England/Wales Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) 2.0 version). In plain English, that means you can't sell my recordings to make money (though you're welcome to distribute them for free), and you can use them as a basis for a derivative work (i.e. remix, add extra instruments, etc.), so long as you make the derivative work available under the same licence conditions. Basically, please feel free to download these tracks, use them in your podcasts, include them on your "great tracks I've heard" playlist or whatever—in fact, please do, and drop me a line (via the obfuscated e-mail link elsewhere on this page) to let me know :-)
I'll upload a second instalment of demos soon, and after that I plan to add some older "albums" of mine to the Internet Archive, such as the mini-album "Rosewood" (2000-2001), and the instrumental collections "Over The Bridge" (1999) and "Through The Arch Window" (1998). Beyond that, my "juvenilia" becomes, I think, increasingly embarrassing, and I'm not sure how much I wish to reveal!
Having said that, "Five Songs" (1996) has some moments I'm quite pleased with—I taped (literally) that collection in the autumn of 1996 on a Tascam 424mkII four-track, under the influence of melancholy singer-songwriters such as Nick Drake, and the early solo work of Everything But The Girl's Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt.
Artistically, and particularly for me personally, the mini-album is rather of its time and place, and I'm interested in preserving it mainly for that reason. Mind you, I'm not quite sure how I'd go about transferring the tracks from the four-track cassettes (even though I still have the 424 up in the loft) to digital, nor to what extent I could "clean up" the audio and make it more listenable—nor, for that matter, can I say whether the effort it would take would ultimately be worthwhile. And come to think of it, I'm not 100% certain where the master tapes are...
Food for thought, indeed, and perhaps a project for the Christmas holidays?
posted by Tim @ 12:43
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