orion

Today sees the release of some more brand new worriedaboutsatan music - a special 11 minute or-so track called 'Orion'.

It's a big, long beast of a thing, made with this split in mind. I do these little split cassettes on my label, This Is It Forever, and the thinking behind them is to ask people who I like to share a tape with me, and do whatever you like with it. For some, it means make a few shorter tracks, but for most it means have fun and wild out for once!

So, with Orion, I wanted to take satan and push it to its limit: nasty feedback, soaring post rock guitars, gentle synth, ambient passages - the whole shabang. Stuff like this would never usually get on a satan album, or EP or whatever, so it's nice to just let loose a little and see what happens.

I hope I've made something a little different, but at the same time keeping that satan sound intact.

Anyway, enough waffle - here's the whole thing on the TIIF Bandcamp:

worriedaboutsatan FC

Had a brainwave the other week, and that was to make up a satan football shirt. I thought the little design made by Cameron Steward (which actually ended up a t-shirt before) looked like a football team crest, and being an avid football fan (and shirt collector) I looked to see if I could make it happen.

Well, a few weeks later I finally got around to ordering it:

Good eh?

guitar

One for the guitar nerds here. here's pretty much everything that was used on guitar parts for the whole of the Arrivals album:

Things were a lot simpler back then! For reference, it's:

• a Marshall Echohead (used to love the backward delay function, but hated the annoying click)
• Boss DD-3 Digital Delay (still have this somewhere - built to last, these bad boys)
• Boss DS-1 (didn't really like it in the end, and gave it to a mate to borrow, but never got it back! Think most of the album's distortion is from the Line6 Spider amp - I had to get this pedal when we went to Iceland, as we were borrowing gear whilst over there) 
• a battered Digitech Digidelay pedal (this was really cool, as it let you loop about 5 seconds of audio, pre-Loop Station. Mainly used it live, but it snuck on the record in bits too)

Now Playing Feb

February's edition of 'Now Playing', the Spotify playlist I rotate each month, is out now. I've added 15 tracks as usual, and as it's a bit of an eclectic bunch this week, I thought I'd break down why I've put each track in there.

First off, get your headphones in and give it a listen:





1. Gang of Four - Paralysed. I wanted to kick this month's off with a little tribute to GO4 guitarist Andy Gill, who sadly passed away at the end of last week. I absolutely love those first two GO4 albums, and Paralysed is such a good, moody opener. It starts 'Solid Gold', their second album. Love the open, creepy atmospherics in it. I've often tried to copy Gill's guitar in certain satan stuff, and especially the live set too. He had a great way of reeling out these super interesting, but really simple guitar lines that give thier songs a sense of urgency, but also space when required. RIP.

2. me - Mirrors. My favourite track off the new record, and it's already in the new live set that I'll be rolling out very soon! Of course I added this in here for a bit of self promo, but it's my list and I'll do what I like with it ;)

3. The Cure - Primary. Never been much of a huge Cure fan. Know a lot about them, and all the singles, etc. but never really gotten into them loads. I had that album 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me' and to be honest, left me a little cold. Anyway, I saw this in a charity shop for a quid so thought I'd go for it. Neat little record, and this tune is a right banger.

4. Harry Styles - Sign Of The Times. I know, I know. "Why's this guy in here?!" - well it's a good song, that's why. Reminds me of those big bastard almost-ballad songs David Gilmour always had a hand in when he was still giving stuff to Pink Floyd (before Roger stopped accepting anyone else's songs) - has one of those big lap steel guitar bits in too.

5. Delta Sleep - The Younger Years. Didn't know an awful lot about DS, but Big Scary Monsters (their label) did a PWYW sale over xmas, so picked up a bit of their catalogue. Always love a bit of mathy prog, and this is about as mathy and proggy as you can get.

6. Mute Forst - Dance The Spell Off. Oh man, this album is an absolute must. My friend Ryan from the label Lost Tribe Sound, sent it over to me as he put a few of my solo bits out over the years. It's easily one of the best albums I've heard lately, and has this really beautiful, hazy Talk Talk style sound to it. The album isn't out until April, but go pre-order it now.

7. Modeselektor & TTC - 200007. One thing I like about Modeselektor is just how un-seriously they take themselves. I remember this one being a big hit in the satan household around the time it came out, and it's just ace.

8. The Bug & Riko Dan - Iceman. Cor, fuckin hell - that bass! Great isn't it? Always love The Bug's commitment to insanely deep bass, and natty shuffly rhythms.

9. PNL - La Monde ou Rien. It translates to 'the world is yours'. Can't quite remember where I heard this first, but I saw the video somewhere, and as a fan of brutalism, I enjoyed all the footage of the notorious La Scampia housing estate in Naples. Looks incredibly brutal.

10. Kylie - Still Standing. I've always enjoyed Kylie's more esoteric stuff, and she does a surprising amount on albums over the years. This is a really good little 80s almost-new wave kinda thing from the same album that weird Kraftwerk style song Slow was on. Sounds a bit Scritti Pollitti, which is never a bad thing I suppose.

11. Joy Divison - Digital. I just finished reading JD drummer Stephen Morris' autobiography, and everytime he mentions the band, I always get this bassline stuck in my head. Brilliant bit of cold, jagged misery from their early days.

12. Bang Gang - Something Wrong. Questionable band name aside, this one is from the early 00s from a little known Icelandic electronic project. I remember frequenting a Sigur Rós chatboard and p2p site an absolute age ago, and people would recommend other Icelandic music. This popped up, and loved it - so simple, yet really airy and melancholic. Just the kinda stuff I like.

13. The Prodigy - Everybody In The Place. I think the only reason this popped up again recently is that I keep falling down whosampled.com wormholes and disappearing for hours, listening to samples and breaks and stuff. Think I wanted to know where the "let's go!" bit came from, so just caned all the older Prodigy stuff in one sitting. Great fun.

14. Caroline Polachek - So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings. With 'Pang', she's made one of my favourite albums recently, and this is like her 17th appearance in one of these lists. This is her most poppy song, but it's also just really nice.

15. Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues. Oh man, everything about this track is just silk. That rhythm section is the tightest, yet loosest thing I've ever heard. Such a groove, yet so languid. Fuck-ing-hell.

bandcamp

Yesterday, the very kind people at Bandcamp, and in particular the very kind Ari Delaney, included Crystalline in their Best New Ambient list for January! Which is very kind. You can read it all here:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-ambient/the-best-new-ambient-music-on-bandcamp-january-2020

Ari also mentions the vocals, which I thought I'd share a bit more detail on, as I thought it was kinda cool how they came about. They're from my partner, Sophie. She used to play and sing in Her name is Calla, and also does various live bits for people like The Anchoress and Maybeshewill. I wanted to add a few layers to these little ramshackle things I had half-recorded, so instead of making her sing the same few phrases again and again on everything, I invented the Sophie Phone Sample Bank Keyboard™

I recorded her into my phone's voice recorder, singing each note seperately. Here's a screenshot:

I then did that very hi-tech thing of taking an aux cord out of my phone, popping an adapter on the other end, and then banging it straight into the Catalinbread Echorec pedal I had (it's since died, sadly) and had a few run throughs to see which notes fit the key of the song, then pressed record and played the phone voice recorder like it was a keyboard, and messed with the delay settings as it was all flowing through. Good, eh?

Anyway, thanks again to Ari and Bandcamp for being so kind.

rewilding

As if you couldn't get enough of me and my music lately, there's a solo track I did for the awesome Whitelab records compilation Sleeplaboratory 2.0 available now. It's called Rewilding, and you can grab it (alongside the comp) here:



Sadly all the CDs have now sold out, so you'll have to make do with a digital :)

The whole album is based around music to help you sleep to, so I made Rewilding as subtle and barely-there as I could, but I think it's quite a nice little piece anyway.

tour

Am looking to organise a tour in October, so if you think you can help out, please hit me up on hello@worriedaboutsatan.co.uk

The set will be a little different from what it used to be, just a fair warning if you're after the 'bangers'. It'll be sadly without a lot of bangers. Banger-less, sans bangers, minus bangers, whatever you'd like to call it. It will, however, still be very good, but perhaps a bit more sit-downy. A bit more ambient. Lots of guitar and trippy atmospherics.

Anyway, if you're a promoter/ venue person/ band wanting to hook up, shoot me a line and we can try work something out.