Showing off

I was talking to Siavash Amini and Brandon Invergo the other day over on Bluesky, and the topic was 'what do you do to keep people interested in an album that's come out but not that old just yet?' - that inverse sweet spot where the album is, say 3 months old, so it's not new but it's not quite archive territory just yet. How do you keep people interested, how do you keep them invested in this work that may have taken you years, but is all over in the blink of an eye after it's put out into the world?

One thought I had is basically just showing off.

I'm not one to go around tooting my own horn much, and I'm pretty sure both Brandon and Siavash are like me in that regard, but I'm thinking more and more like we need to break out of that more insular, reserved sort of headspace and show off once in a while.

Like, obviously not be an egotistical dick about these things - there's a balance you have to strike, like a lot in life I suppose, but there should be a way of basically saying 'HEY, I'M PRETTY GOOD Y'KNOW!' without coming across like a complete knobhead.

I started a thread on Bluesky recently, just showcasing some of the stuff I've done over the past 19 years - the Adam Curtis stuff, the gigs, festivals, etc. that I've been involved in. Y'know, the cool shit - the really fun stuff. Because if I don't do this sort of thing, literally no-one else will, so the next time someone offers me a gig for no money, or never responds to my emails, etc. I can look at this thread and think 'yeah fuck that, I'm worth something!' instead of drying up into a ball of self doubt and anxiety.

Because sadly, all this stuff I put in that thread means absolute zero when you're talking to people in 'the biz' - the agents, the labels, the press, etc. it's all 'how many streams do you have on spotify?' (sigh) or 'how big is this person this week?' and without big PR, or a label push, it's unlikely you'll tick all their boxes. And even if you do have those things, it's still fucking hard. So you'll rush to release something else, just to get that sweet hit of something so people can talk about you. 

So yeah, go on, even if it's just for yourself, just fucking show off once in a while, it's a nice reminder if nothing else, of all the stuff you've actually accomplished over the years. And trust me, even plucking one note or standing on one stage is waaaaaay more than most people do in life, so you've done more than most already. Just shout about it more! 

All The Way...

New single out today!

It's one of those 360 degree handbrake turns that I love to throw in there every now and then. Gone are the beautiful textured ambient atmospheres and dub techno soundscapes, and in come some absolutely unhinged, feral electro-disco stompers.

I actually did these at the start of the year, but other things sort of got in the way, so couldn't just put them out then and there, which was the original idea.

They came out of me listening to a lot of that early Factory Floor stuff and wondering why the hell no-one does this anymore. Surely it's just really visceral and fun - we should all be doing this?! So anyway, I set everything up and just let rip. 

When recording, due to the way my very old setup works, I basically had to just record the synth in one go and hope I'd get it right with transitions and crescendos, etc. without hearing the beat, bassline, or anything else. It was quite fun working like that, in a weird way. I built the rest of the track around these one take wonders, and so even though it sounds very loose and jammy, it's been pieced together with painstaking detail!

Anyway, enough yakkin', here it is:

 

Won't someone please think of the exposure!

Hahahahahaha, I mean fucking hell:

 

 

Pulling the old 'do it for the exposure' thing, but pulling it on Taylor Swift is a beutiful encapsulation of the music biz, really. You couldn't ask for a better headline than that. I mean, fuck me - she earns *billions*, never needs to play a festival ever again because each one of her shows is basically a festival anyway. It's insane, the GDP of countries go up when she rolls into town, and the fucking Superbowl thought 'nah we're not paying for that, if you're lucky you can pay us' hahaha. Incredible.

 

Got me thinking about exposure though, mainly in the ways I've personally been royally fucked over by it over the years.

 

I suppose, this being an 'industry' and a 'business', you will eventually have to dance with the devil at one point (or several to be honest), but part of doing this, of making music, is finding that line between 'this might benefit me' and 'this is a joke, fuck off'. It's all part of growing up, I guess. When you're young, you're bulletproof - you can do whatever, whenever, and it just doesn't matter. Yeah, play that gig for free, do that remix, get your name out there, sure why not eh?

 

But as you get older, as you wise up, you get experience. People always make fun of me because I have a 'grudge list', which is essentially a big list of things I'm never doing again, and a list of people or entities whom it's not worth my time to entertain anymore. I don't look at it as a grudge list though, I look at it as my protection - a way of shielding myself from another shitty experience. You'll, in time, come up with one whether explicitly or not, trust me.

 

But we all have to play a game we don't want to sometimes. I once did a remix, and against my better judgement, said yes to a band I didn't really know. I asked about budget and they just came up with some stuff about not having a budget, having to pay loads of other people, etc. Now I don't mind doing freebies for mates - I do them all the time tbh, but if I don't know you just yet, it's different. So having the rug pulled like this, I did whatever I could to at least have some control over it. So I loaded in their remix stems, put reverb up to 100% on all of them and called it a day. Took 30 minutes, but I figured they were getting what they paid for, ie. absolutely nothing. They loved it anyway, haha.

 

So anyway, my advice is to hone that instinct - know what you're worth, and don't accept anything less. It takes time, and you'll have to eat the occasionaly shit sandwich, but we all do. Just don't eat too many. 

New live set

With 2025 heading towards the exit door, me and Sophie thought it'd be a great idea to work on a brand new live set for the new year, where we're hoping to get back out on the road again. 

It's sounding amazing so far, a lot darker than the one we've been playing for the past year, but really cool. We've upgraded a lot of the gear, and elevated Sophie's violin into the set, so she's not just playing a lot of atmospheres and loops now. 

Here are a few snaps from the practice sessions we've had so far:

 

Every time I've been to Bristol

Touring is very funny sometimes. Other times, it's not. In the moment, it's as serious as your life - a few years on, you look back and just laugh at how daft it all is.

Over the years, satan (and season) have played Bristol a few times. Not many mind, as it's quite a distance from Yorkshire. But weirdly, every time I've ventured down there, something's invariably gone wrong. Bristol, why do you hate me so much?!

If we take out the two times satan played Arctangent festival (which is more Cheddar way anyway), everytime I've set foot in the city to play, something's happened. I'm cursed, I swear.

 

In no particular order, here are all my Bristol war stories:

1) playing the top floor of a boat with the worst sound system I've ever played through, and being told all the DI's for our gear are being used in the bigger (better) gig downstairs, so we'll have to wait. We got there on time, but somehow ended up being late going on - not that it mattered, no-one really hung around for the gig anyway.

2) playing a cool arts venue as part of a tour with another band, and being told that the staff have no idea there was even a gig that night. the posters I'd sent at some expense weren't anywhere to be seen, and we ended up hastily soundchecking in the live room surrounded by people cleaning up. Think that crowd only just broke double figures. It got to the point where people were messaging me asking if the gig was still on, as the cool arts venue hadn't mentioned it anywhere.

3) hiring a sub from a guy who lived round the corner from the venue and having to listen to him take endless calls about what he was planning to do that night, rather than help us clean all the shit off said sub, let alone move it out of his house. 

4) watching a support band I'd paid quite a bit of money to play struggle with some unknown technical issue just as I brought the background music down so they could start the set. Half an hour later, they were ready to roll, and is seemingly customary with satan gigs, they didn't cut any of their set and therefore we had about 35 minutes to actually headline.

5) grabbing some fast food after one of these nightmare shows, and not only do we get forgotten about on the drive through, but when the food does come, it makes Sophie ill the day after. 

6) this one just in... heading down to ATG so Sophie could play with Maybeshewill, and even though I'd gone to pains to avoid having to deal with Bristol beforehand, the city has its revenge: the car breaks down on the way to the motorway, so we're towed home, have to run for an expensive, overcrowded, boiling hot train, 4.5 hours later, we're in Bristol Temple Meads. Then a taxi to the festival site which is 40 minutes and god knows how much, then after the show, another taxi (£50) to our hotel where we were staying, which we had to ring all day to explain what had happened and that we were planning on coming still, but it'd be late. In fairness, the guy who ended up working the check-in desk that night was a fucking legend and treated us really well. In the morning, we realised we'd aciddentally dropped a few things in the cab the night before, but no worries because the cab company don't know anything about it and want me to ring Bristol airport's lost and found (?) so we soldier on, walk to this remote train station, get back to Temple Meads, get on train and finally come home. Went straight to the pub, coincidentally.

Oh, and whilst I'm here, here's one for Cardiff which is sort of close by (must be something to do with that end of the island)

the bermuda triangle of my sanity

7) playing a cool little arty cafe thing in Cardiff, and the promoter is insistent on adding a 4th (!!) band to our bill, which is handily 3 acts that were all touring together. The band sound nothing like us and don't stick around, but also don't bring anyone either, so it's added stress for nothing. I'm not kidding when I say that there were literally 3 people in the audience when we played, and some of those were in the support bands. To knock it up a notch, the place is riddled with weird sound issues - crackling, cutting out, distorting, humming, buzzing, you name it, it was there. The sound guy didn't know what to do, the first act just stopped after bravely trying to make a go of it for 10 minutes, and we only managed about 25ish I think. The promoter never contacted us again, and also for some reason ran old CRT TVs in the venue all night, despite the fact it was causing loads of annoying static and looked shit. I kept turning them off as I was getting static shocks, but he kept putting them back on lol. Not to worry though, as he sat upstairs during all the music. Top stuff! Sat in a Premier Inn after that with the most depressing can of Red Stripe I've ever drunk.

BoC

I had some time to kill the other day, so went for a pint and popped my headphones on. "Ah yeah, Music Has the Right to Children!" I said, queueing it up for the millionth time in my life. 

This band, and these albums... just fucking amazing aren't they?

MHTRTC was probably the first electronic album I properly got into. Back when I first heard it at the start of the 00s, I was still a bit of a guitar guy - granted it was more the weirder side of guitar stuff, and was less about the britpop I'd grown up listening to, but I'd not branched out into the wider world of weird electronica just yet. 

Kid A hit the suburbs like a freight train btw - we were all middle class nerdy kids living in small villages in the north of England, and not exactly clued up on what was happening outside of Melody Maker and NME, so when Radiohead came along and starting citing people like Autechre, BoC, Aphex, Squarepusher, etc. it led us all down the path to disover what this stuff was for ourselves. 

I'd been exposed to my fair share of electronic and dance music through being a kid in the early 90s, and having a brother who was a budding DJ - I'd hear stuff like Underworld, Cassius, Hybrid, all that Roule stuff, etc. it was fun, but there wasn't anything that quite matched my unabashed love of the melancholic in all that, until that is I downloaded 'Kaini Industries' from some file sharing network I've now completely forgotten about.

That first compact hit - I'd chosen that one to download as it was super short, so wouldn't take very long to download on a dial up modem - crept up on me. I'd always thought it had a nice little sound, but it took a while to investigate further. Once those wobbly, fluid synth lines has embedded themselves in my skull, I was ready - I remember listening to their first albums on repeat. Think it was Geogaddi I got first, via CDwow.com, which shipped tax free from Hong Kong, so you could get CDs on the cheap. What a time.

I loved everything about it, in and outside of the actual music - the way the band operated was so special, the fact you didn't know much about these dudes, but snatched glimpses of their process, the fact you had to rely on these albums as transmissions. 

I remember I used to put 'like Mogwai and Boards of Canada' on early satan press releases, as I wanted to fuse a sort of bastard child between them both. Creepy synths and glacial guitars, packed into 2-3 minute tracks, that was how satan went in the early days.

It's also hilarious that for a band that prided itself on mysterious analogue gear, every new plugin going has something or other that makes things sound exactly like BoC.

That's just a cheap cop-out though, you can't force yourself to sound like Boards - it has to come from somewhere, and where they were coming from was a deeply personal place, indebted to fading childhood memories, that old nostalgia for something you barely remember. The past truly being a different country. The mixture of emotions that brings - something you cherish, but can never repeat ever again, something so beautiful, but you have to leave behind forever, fits perfectly into their chosen sound of bitcrushed hip hop beats, TV samples and all those LFO heavy woozy synth lines.

But the best thing about it all, is that you can just jettison all that if you want and just enjoy it on a very surface level. You can just sit and enjoy the melodies, the shimmering guitars of Dayvan Cowboy, the pummeling rhythms of Gyroscope, the skittering madness of XYZ. They're like Lynch movies - you can remove all the context if you like and just bathe in the weirdness of it all, and you can do that here - just enjoy it, no need for any extra detail if you don't want.

But ah man, what a fucking band though eh? What a fucking band.

Subtle Manoeuvers

It's a weird one, grief.

People deal with it in different ways, but it doesn't stop it being a hard thing to process. My mum rang me back in June to say that her brother, my uncle, had passed away whilst on a break to Skegness. He'd been dealing with cancer for the past 5 or so years, but it still came as a shock - my mum was obviously really upset, I was gutted - my aunt and uncle on my mum's side had always been there, always there with a card every birthday, always there with a smile. 

After the initial shock, and then the funeral a few weeks back, I decided I wanted to do something to honour him, to do something nice in the face of something so sad. The only thing I know how to really do is make silly little tapes with my stupid band name on, so that's what I did and that's what is out today. It's an album called Subtle Manoeuvers (s/o Franz Kafka for the title inspo) and it's a pretty laid back atmospheric dub techno sort of thing

It's funny, because I wasn't planning on releasing much this year- I wanted to do The Future Can Wait, then take a bit of a break from everything, but the universe obviously had other plans in mind. 

Around May and June, when the weather was super nice, I was inspired to just sit in my studio room after work and wind down by putting some very languid sort of golden hours stuff together, and before long I had 4 tracks done and dusted - just keeping it all relatively simple and relaxed - all the guitars and synth were done in one take each, save for a few bum notes here and there that I ended up chopping out, it's on the record how I played it originally - just messing about over the track. It fit so well! 

Anyway, it's all done and it's out now and I'm donating every last penny to Cancer Research UK in the memory of my uncle, Brian Davis. 

If you don't buy tapes, or whatever, that's fine and understandable - just go donate something to the charity here and tell them I sent you haha.