I Hope You Like The Bundesliga

 

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin... 

It's time (already) for album number 12. Considering the band has been going for 17 years, you'd actually probably expect a few more albums in that time, but due to various side projects, doing-things-as-EPs, and just a general slow down some years, the count is currently still at 12.

Anyway, this new one is a bit different. First off, it's coming out on Golden Ratio Frequencies, the sort-of ambient, sort-of new age, sort-of noise label run by Alex of Salford's finest purveyours of slow motion mayhem, Gnod. So, this one will sound different. There are no beats, no synths, no mad samples or post-rock guitar action, it's just 4 tracks of pure, foggy guitar based ambience.

In fact, you can trace the whole record back to this one tweet I did:

Just sat listening to one tone go through a few of my pedals and it's really, really nice. You're all up for an hour long album of just lush tone, right?

— worriedaboutsatan (@teamsatan) November 10, 2020

That was me messing about with a new pedal I'd gotten, an Electro Harmonix Freeze - it sort of captures one element of whatever it is you're playing, and stretches it into one continuous tone. Whack that through my reverb and delay pedals, and ho boy, you've got yourself a big ol' washy ambient album.

So I recorded these things, and sent them to GRF, not knowing it was actually Alex from an old band satan had played with waaaaay back in the day - Manatees. The band used to play on much heavier line-ups back then (I'm guessing the metalheads liked our computers), and it was on one of these that we got to know them a little bit. They split up though, and we all went our seperate ways (as these things tend to do), so I was very nicely surprised when Alex piped up on the reply email saying it was him! Small world.

Anyway, due to covid, scheduling difficulties, real life stuff, and a variety of other things getting in the way, it's taken a little while for this one to come out, a little like my January album 'Falling But Not Alone' - that ended up being in limbo for about 2 years - this one has had its own fairly intense backstory too.

But it's here now, and if you'd like to pre-order a tape, you can do so by hopping over to the label's Bandcamp here.

The name, by the way, was just a joke I kept saying to my girlfriend Sophie - back in lockdown, the first football to come back was the German Bundesliga, so I started watching it, and really enjoyed it, so when all football eventually returned, I kept watching the German league, to which I'd exclaim "I hope you like the Bundesliga!" every time there was a match on. My team is St. Pauli btw (although who's isn't it? What a bunch of lads)

Anyway, there you go - I very much hope you like I Hope You Like The Bundesliga.

2013

How on earth is 2013 now 10 years ago?

Well, it is, and with it is a little anniversary of some records I'm very proud of. It marks the first time that I put music out under my own name, which is an important milestone to remember, seeing as how that's how I've ended up doing just that with worriedaboutsatan.

Anyway, back in 2013, I was living in Manchester, and sort of inbetween bands. Ghosting Season was on it's last legs, and plans were afoot to resurrect satan from it's slumber, but before all of that, I started knocking together some music for myself. I made all this in my bedroom in a block of flats in Ancoats (spitting distance from the Etihad), and wanted to do something that wasn't anything much to do with anyone. Over the course of a year, I knocked together 3 EPs (as well as some other stuff for splits and things), and released them on my now also-resurrected This Is It Forever label. 

Fotograf was a big, murky ambient thing - I was seeing if I had the chops for this dark ambient lark, so came up with this. Eagle-eared fans might recognise part 2 in a few Adam Curtis films. He liked that one I seemed to remember.

Instruktion was an attempt at kosmische - just synth lines pinging off each other underneath wailing guitars and a steady bass & drum combo. Think I managed it, and part 2 was the basis for my solo live set, that I attempted a few times over the course of 2013-14. I only did it a few times, as I found it super difficult to get gigs. Anyway, I like how floaty these two tracks are.

Manuskript was made out of these weird synth things I'd had floating about on my laptop for a while. They were sort of in-tune with each other, but sort of not. Anyway, I thought of doing a super sterile Raster-Noton sort of thing with them, and having fun cutting up some mad jungle breaks. That's always fun. The front cover btw, is of a cable car in Croatia - me and Sophie were on our last day of a holiday, so did the only thing we hadn't done all trip, which was go up this massive cable car, however the weather was all foggy, so although we could see fuck all, it did give me this excellent photo.

All three EPs are pay-what-you-want, and preceeded an album, Somn, which was released in early 2014.

May tour pt.2

Here we go!

 

 

Tickets to every show here: linktr.ee/worriedaboutsatan

May Tour

Yes, I'm hitting the road once more, in an attempt to get you to part with some cash and watch me frantically flail my arms onstage, trying to reproduce various worriedaboutsatan records for your pleasure and amusement.

Anyway... the tour will be announced in full very soon, as I'm just waiting on one or two stragglers to either confirm or deny whether I can come visit with all my various boxes and keyboards.

For now, you have three cast iron opportunities to come see me play:

5th May at The Triangle, Shipley (tickets here)

6th May at Just Dropped In, Coventry (tickets here)

7th May at Cafe Kino, Bristol (tickets here)

- the Bristol show is the latest to be announced, and will be on a bank holiday Sunday, so don't worry if you saw 'sunday' and thought 'good grief, no-one's going to gigs on Sunday you idiot'. It'll also be the farthest south I'm going, as London didn't work out this time, so if you Londoners fancy a road trip, Brizzle is your best bet.

It'll also coincide with a new album as well, which is nice!

Behind the album: FBNA edition

Well, after numerous years and a several delays, Falling But Not Alone is out now:

I've written before about how this album had a bit of a torturous time of it, but wanted to expand on that, as the album itself is full of little stories. For a start, the record is a bit unlike other satan albums. Usually, I'll sit down in one stretch of time, and come up with enough material to fit on an album, then call it a day and box it off. Sometimes though, older tracks will pop up on newer albums - Twin, for example, was added to Time Lapse, despite being a few years old at that point, but it fit sonically with the rest of the album, so it didn't sound too out of place. In fact, Twin and FBNA's opening track 'All's Lost' were recorded at the same time, way back when, but just never got around to being released. I think at one point, the band had an idea to release them as a split double A-side single, but it never happened in the end, and they were shunted into the vault of unreleased tracks, which we tended to dip into when we needed something.

All's Lost was originally an instrumental, until I approached Manchester based electronica act She The Throne for a vocal. I've known STT for ages, and we even did our last tour as a duo with them back in 2019, before covid hit and satan went solo, so was thrilled when Alison agreed to put something on it. Both this one, and the aforementioned Twin, both had plenty of singers attached to them over the years as well - last time I counted I think 5 different singers were attached to do something on them at one point or another, but it was only when STT sent back a take that anything ever happened on it. To that, I am eternally grateful for them. Go check em out, they're amazing (and wicked live too)

Goodbye From A Slowly Sinking Ship is one of the newer pieces on here, and I finished this one off when I moved house in early 2020, just as lockdown was happening. That gave me plenty of time to focus on music - you'll have no doubt seen the amount of records that came out on the satan timeline around 2020-21, and this was part of that relentless recording period. I'd had a rough idea to replicate Shift, the 2018 EP we did for the same label that was putting this one out: Wolves and Vibrancy. I wanted a long, meandering, mainly synth based track that sort of ebbed and flowed, and I think I sort of nailed it. The main synth lines are cut up and re-pitched bits from various sample packs I'd started to buy around this time, which was a lot of fun.

Hours Pass was actually an off-cut from Time Lapse - the album mentioned a little earlier. Come to think of it, there was another off-cut from that album in the form of Conservatory, which only resurfaced as a free download on my Soundcloud page. Anyway, when I submitted TL to n5MD, the label that put it out, I sort of panicked and thought they'd want a huge sprawling album, so wanted to give them as much material as possible. When Mike gave his initial thoughts, it was to cut Hours Pass (which was a very late recording in that process anyway) and Conservatory, and replace it with Mingels. It would also help time-wise, as I think the record was running too long for vinyl at that point. Anyway, it worked and Hours Pass just sort of fell into the vault.

The last track, 'Hang In There, Baby!' (reference for the title here) was the last thing I did for this album, and I think by this point I was a bit strung out after so much writing and recording that I was doing at the time. I just about squeezed enough of my energy into it though, and wanted something that sounded quite nostalgic, and something that didn't have a guitar on it at all, so I cut up some pianos and played some glistening 80s synth over it. Was very cathartic, and sounded so nice to play - I could've sat for hours and played the same three notes again and again, but that wouldn't be very commercially friendly lol.

So yes, once all these were packaged together and sent off to Fabian at the label, we had quite a few setbacks. The initial idea for the record was hatched basically once we'd done Shift, but we were busy with other stuff and never quite got around to it. Once the band became a solo affair though, I decided to make some time, as Fabian was very enthusiastic about working with me, and didn't want to let him down or take the piss - he was putting money and time into the band's endeavours, so wanted to repay him. 

However, things went pretty slowly - Wolves had a busy schedule, and vinyl wait times were pretty long, even then, so it was slipping backwards in the release timeline straight away. Then the mastering engineer who was supposed to work on it fell ill and couldn't complete it, so in came Aidan Baker of Nadja fame to finish it off, but then covid hit, and the pressing plants shut down for a while. Only when they started back up again did the album get the green light, but more delays (thanks Abba, thanks Adele) saw it pushed back to where it is now - January 2023, which is mad when you think it was 2018/19 when we first talked about it.

Right, anyway, hope you've enjoyed this little piece. The album's out now, and the shirts and vinyl are awesome and you should all go buy one! 

State of the satan 2022

I do one of these every year, so here it is for 2022: a rather dispassionate list of everything I've released this year, just in case you want to pick something up that you might've missed! A lot are pay-what-you-want, whereas others are just priced pretty cheaply. 

 

As worriedaboutsatan:

Sigourney Weaver Fanclub President (Single, This Is It Forever)

Bloodsport (Album, This Is It Forever) 

Celebrity Bloodsport: The Remixes (Remix album, This Is It Forever)

Glass Infinites (Album, This Is It Forever)

0207 (EP, self released)

Patterns (feat. The Anchoress) [Single, This Is It Forever]

Dude, You Might Wanna Put A Vest On (Single, This Is It Forever)

Live 2022 (Live album, self released)

 

As Marta Mist: 

I've Not Blinked Enough / Midnight Solitaire (Single, This Is It Forever)

Eyes Like Pools (Album, Sound in Silence)

As Gavin Miller:

Slumbertones #1 (EP, self released)

Remixes! All done as satan this year:

Message to Bears - Daylight Goodbye (worriedaboutsatan remix)

Arms & Sleepers - Come With Me (worriedaboutsatan remix)

Gallops - Death Square (worriedaboutsatan remix)

Also, a big shout out to Catherine aka The Anchoress, for making Bloodsport her album of the year in Prog Magazine!

2022 favourites

Time again, I suppose, to list some records that I've really enjoyed over the past 12 months. For reasons that I'm not particularly interested in going into on here, my music consumption sort of stopped for a little while, so this list is a little light, but hopefully someone gets a kick out of it.

The Broadcast 3 album mega-deal (Maida Vale Sessions, Microtronics 1&2, Mother Is the Milky Way) 

Andy Stott - The Slow Ribbon

HEALTH - Disco pt.4 II

Sunshine Life Emulator - Hatch Dream

Kuedo - Infinite Window

Can - Live in Cuxhaven 1976

Stereolab - Pulse of the Early Brain (Switched on Volume 5)

Moin - Paste

Oiseaux-Tempete - What On Earth

 Cryalot - Icarus

Vaal - Love Reversed

Backxwash -  HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING