Tuesday, February 14, 2023

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.