Next gig: 23rd October

It's been a while, hasn't it? 

We don't do much in the way of gigging these days, and like to keep it to a minimum per year, but make them extra special.

Well, the next one is coming up - October 23rd, we'll be supporting the lovely Jo Quail at the KCC in Shipley.

 

Tickets are here, and as usual, we'll be doing this year's live set, which is all semi-improvised between me and Sophie. If you've still not caught us live, you can check out a whole boat-load of live shows that I record with my trusty gopro and Zoom recorder (audio comes straight out of the mixing desk, so it's tip top quality) on the satan youtube. Here's the last one, when we supported Pye Corner Audio back in May: 

 

If you're coming from out of town for it, there are plenty of public transport options available, with Shipley train station being a literal 10ish minute walk away, with bus stops, taxis and parking all available outside the venue too. In fact, there's are two car parks round the back and a ton of on-street parking out front, so it'll be fine if you're bringing the car. Loads on info on the KCC website here.

See you all there! 

New Marta Mist!

Back in 2010, me and Sophie did this little experiment and called it Marta Mist. The name was from a character in a murder mystery book we were reading at the time, and the experiment was a big, longform track called 'Distance/ Skeletal/ Union', which we amazingly managed to get signed to a small label called Hibernate (real heads know!) 

Anyway, we decided to keep the whole thing a secret (as was the style at the time), and it was nice to escape the rigours and pressure from the whole worriedaboutsatan thing (which was slowly becoming the Ghosting Season thing at that point) and Sophie's involvement with Her name is Calla. It was nice to have something for ourselves that wouldn't enrage anyone else. 

That all feels like such a long time ago now, and ever since, we've been putting out sporadic little tapes and CDs with the Marta Mist project - just taking our time, away from the more relentless schedule that satan runs with, just our little cottage industry shuffling along as and when we feel like it.

The latest is this one, called 'So Long, Goodbye and Good Luck', which isn't a cry for help, or a document of our impending closure of the project, but a sort of cathartic way of dealing with redundancy from my day job. 

We'd recorded everything on here in fits and spurts over the last year or so, and eagle eared fans might be able to join the dots between 'A Company Man to the Bitter End', and the middle section of the old worriedaboutsatan live set we were playing all last year. Thought it was too nice of a piece of music to leave it there, it needed recording! The rest though, are just little doodles me and Sophie put together whenever we had some spare time, and the closing track, 'We Never Did Get That Victory Lap' is, I think, the first MM track that is 100% Sophie. 

Any road, it's out now and pay-what-you-like for digital, and only £6 for a natty handmade CD (just like the old days of handmade satan CDs, eh?!) 

A tour around Shipley with my album covers

A random shower thought I had the other day was just how many photos of Shipley and Saltaire end up on my album covers, and if you ever had a day off and wanted to explore BD18 in a satan style, here's where everything is:

 

No Knock No Doorbell (2026) 

Victoria Road, Saltaire

This one was taken by Sophie when we were walking home after our local pub's quiz night. It was still summer, hence the green still being on the tree. It's right at the top of Victoria Road, just as you walk onto Bingley Road. 

 

 

The Dream is Over (2026)

 

 Bingley Road, Saltaire

One just round the corner from the album cover, so it's nice they keep a geographical similarity as well as an aesthetic one. This one was a shot I got on my phone one night as I always thought it was cool when they didn't have anything to put on the massive board and just kept it on with an asterisk.

 

The Future Can Wait (2025)

 Caroline Street Social Club, Caroline Street, Saltaire

This was a shot by Marc Leighton, a photographer who was a friend of a friend to start with, and once I'd seen this shot on his instagram, I messaged him to see if I could use it for a cover. He agreed and I think it's one my favourite satan sleeves ever! It's in the main room of the local members club the Caroline St. Social Club. Been to many a gig here, which is just as well as they don't really open the bar to non-members, but allow it once in a while when something's on, or when there's an open day in Saltaire village, 

 

The Pivot (2023) 

Upstairs at The Triangle, 47 Bradford Road, Shipley

As taken on an old camera by me whilst setting up for my first solo gig as worriedaboutsatan, upstairs at the bottle shop The Triangle. I've done so many gigs here since, it's daft even trying to count them. A really nice space though - just go upstairs and wander to the opposite end of the room and you'll see this window.

 

 

I Hope You Like The Bundesliga (2023)

Park Street, Saltaire

Taken on my way to where I used to work around this time one very wintery morning. We were set to buy a house on this road once, which was weird as my dad later told me some of my very old family used to live on the street way back in the day. Never happened, sadly, but the football pitch is nice to kick a ball on every now and then.

 

 

Providence (2021)

 

Shipley clock tower, Kirkgate, Shipley

Taken by John Cade, a local photographer. The old clock tower is a real brutalist beauty. It's recently been in the news as the town applied for it to be a listed building, but as with anything outside of the M25, no-one was interested, so it's seen better days. It's slap bang in the centre of Shipley if you were wondering.

 

 

Time Lapse (2020)

Milner Field Mansion ruins, Higher Coach Road, Bingley

OK, so technically not Shipley or Saltaire, but it's accessible through an old road you follow from the back of my old school in Saltaire. If you follow it up towards Bingley, you come across the old ruins to the Milner Field Manion, that amazingly haven't been cleared up since the 50s/ 60s. It's a wonderful bit of history, and a very very very creepy backstory, which I got intensely obssessed with around this time

 

 

No Knock No Roundup

I figured I should attempt to round up all the nice press I had for No Knock No Doorbell, if for nothing else than my own amusement, as I never remember to put everything in one place. It had some amazing words written about it, so thank you to all those that spent some time with it. Much appreciated :)

Prog Magazine: 

 
Electronic Sound:
 

Rockerilla:

 
  

Moonbuilding did a nice review too (although it's now behind a paywall so I can't read it lol), The Tonearm did a really nice interview piece and review of the record, The Ransom Note asked if I could do a playlist of the stuff I was listening to when I started the band over two decades ago, which I duly did for them (loved this one btw, was a lot of fun!) and I also had a chat with my guy Pato Canton for his radio show, which you can listen back to here.
 

Yorkshire Post:

 

Elsewhere on the web, Magazine Sixty did an interview and review of the album, which was really very nice of them, sonofmarketing did a nice little write up too, and I even had time to squeeze ino mentions on Stereogum (behind a paywall, but trust me when I say it happened!) and NPR of all places (!!) Last but by no means least, Fin at Happening Again said some nice things too.

 

Sun 13:

Melted Form:

 

In at no.29!

Bloody hell, I made the charts again, only this time cracked the top 30! Straight in at no.29, narrowly behind Gorillaz and Bruno Mars hahahahaha. Fucking hell. Incredible.

 

 

Huge thanks to you all for picking up a copy, and I'd like to think my ongoing hatred of Spotify keeps pushing all my records up the charts with each release. Ricochet hit 92, then The Future Can Wait went to 40, Subtle Manoeuvers 39, and now NKND in at 29!

Love it. 

No Knock No Doorbell

Well, here we are then: album no.20 in year 20 of worriedaboutsatan. Not easy going at times, a lot of fun in others, it's been a real ride up to this point.

This record was made a little differently than others, and actually had an entirely different track listing at one point, but I'm super happy with the way it's eventually all come together. Hope you enjoy it too. 

 

 

With a lot of these tracks, the initial ideas were way off from what they eventually became, and I think that's a nice way to look at the album as a whole, and indeed the band as a whole too. The initial tagline for satan was 'Mogwai meets Boards of Canada', and I'd like to believe that whilst it was as good a starting point as any, I've moved past that now into something else completely. Which is good! I like it when things like that happen.

It's funny, at least two tracks on here were supposed to have vocal features, but didn't happen in the end, and I think they're much better off for it. Icelandic Hardcore, the little interlude towards the end of the album, was actually this big massive thing at one point, but it just didn't sit with me - I stripped it all back and just let that lonesome synth figure play on and it was perfect. Before Your Eyes was supposed to be my math-rock number, with me playing guitar in different figures over each other, but it quickly became this sprawling jazzy prog beast instead. Piece By Miserable Piece was left on the hard-drive for aaaaages because I just couldn't get the sound right, but after a while it started to click and eventually became what you hear now. It's fun, charting these things from the initial baseline to what they eventually turned into. 

ANYWAY. I really hope you all enjoy it, and send me a message if you have any questions about it, I'm always here haha.

Gavin x 

 

The Dream Is Over

Introducing your second taste of the new album, here's a single for The Dream Is Over. It comes backed with a remix from my dude Good Weather For An Airstrike, and a b-side called Stress Test:

 

TDIO (for short) is the last track on the new album, so sounds suitably epic as a way to close off the whole record's twists and turns. It actually started life as a little guitar doodle that I didn't really know what to do with. It was part of a bunch of stuff which was really hard to make anything out of - I remember feeling weirdly out of sorts with it, like I couldn't get my mojo going with any of it, so it languished on a hard drive for ages before I decided to take another look at it. 

Over time, with the stuff I added, it took on a new life and became a sort of Massive Attack (Mezzanine-era) thing - the drums were from a sample pack of 80s goth stuff, and the big kit at the end was from just a regular rock sample pack, but I slowed them down a bit and added a beefier kick to make it really wollop. It'd been a while since I'd wolloped anyone, so was surprised and very pleased when I tried it out and the wollop hit hard.

Then I pieced it all together and did my usual thing of throwing everything in there all at once before realising this particular track needed a bit of space and a lot of time to get towards where it needed to go, so stripped it back before layering it all in again. Hey presto! It worked!

Stress Test is an altogether different beast - now and again, when I have a bit of time off from making stuff, or I'm in a bit of a rut, I need a little exercise to get back into it again, so this was one of those. I'd loaded up a few bits from various sample packs I'd had lying around, with nothing in my head apart from having a bit of fun moving stuff around. Again, this was one that was fun, but didn't have a plan for it, so just left it and worked on something else. Something drew me back to it though, and when I opened it back up, I took it a bit more seriously, and started layering in other samples, and when it had this groove I thought 'shit, you know what would sound great here? a jungle break', so I slowed one down and added it and yeah, fucking hell, sounded great - so just kept on and on and on, then it became Stress Test.

The remix is by my old chum Tom Honey, aka Good Weather For An Airstrike. We've been pals for a while, so whilst a particularly frought Tottenham game was on (he's a Spurs fan), he agreed to have a play around with TDIO and shot this back a month or so later. Good lad.