Tour 2022

Bloody hell, touring is knackering isn't it?

Anyway, I've just about recovered from the March 2022 dates, and just wanted to say a big thank you to all who came out and saw me, those that picked something up, or just had a little dance: it's all massively appreciated, so big love from team satan. Which, I guess is just me. Lol.

It was proper hard work, not made any easier by covid throwing multiple spanners in the works, which meant that Dean McPhee and Deer Leader both had to pull out of the Shipley and Glasgow gigs respectively. A massive shame, as I was really looking forward to seeing both! Jon Gomm was an absolute star and filled in for the Shipley show, and in Glasgow I sort of had to support myself by doing a longer set than usual. Was fun, actually, even if I didn't quite know what was happening at times.

London and Leeds were great too, although the less said about my synth throwing a little tantrum onstage in Leeds, and deciding it was then that it would detatch itself from the drum machine it was getting the tempo information from, the better. It's now gone to live on a farm somewhere in the countryside, and was replaced on a particularly manic Saturday morning in Bradford. Shout out to Disc DJ store btw, they had one in stock when no-one else in Yorkshire did! Great shop too, full of lovely toys.

Big shout out to the 13th Note sound tech too, Kay, who I'd been talking to about all manner of weird, underground music, only for my in-between band playlist scuppering my street cred by blasting Misery Business by Paramore straight away. Oops.

Anyway, touring by yourself isn't always easy, and having to do little things you very rarely think about, like doing the door, or manning the merch desk, or just making sure the support band is alright (and making sure you pay them too!) is a LOT of effort. My back went on day 1 and didn't recover again until just now, so let that be a lesson to any touring musician in their late 30s: look after your back.

Shipley looking lovely in the sunshine

Leeds, complete with naughty synth just out of shot

Glasgow, with a Paramore soundtrack

London, where I forgot to take a pic of it all setup, so here it is pushed to one side

Bloodsport day

Today's the day, folks! Bloodsport is finally out.

To say this record has been a massive part of my life over the last six months would be a monumental understatement. From finishing the actual music to today's release date, it's been an absolute shift, I can tell you - from mixing, mastering and sequencing, to pressing it up, doing all the PR and then posting it all out to everyone, it's been mad.

First up, big thanks to you if you've bought it already. If not, there are a few copies back in stock over at my Bandcamp page:

The only other copies are with me on this tour I'm on over the next week or so. Tonight I'm off to Leeds to celebrate at Wharf Chambers, with Western Edges in support. They're actually a side project of Richard Adams from Hood and Declining Winter, so it seems apt that someone who created so many albums that mean so much to me, and informed the music I want to make, is on the same stage this evening. You can get tickets here, up til about 6pm I think.

Anyway, Bloodsport! It's done, it's out and it's gone. Really hope you enjoy this one, as it was a hard thing to finish, and an even harder one to actually put out. Doing everything yourself is always a double edged sword, and I don't think I'll be doing another 'big' release like this by myself anytime soon - man, it's hard work! haha. I've been thinking about how to get stuff out much quicker and easier recently, and I'm hoping to experiment a little bit later this year, but more on that later. I'll have a few more albums coming soon, and then a few live appearances too. 

For now, enjoy the album and be sure to spread the word :)

Thanks,

Gavin

STN

I was a little bored the other day, and realised I'd not done a mix in a while. Not just a Spotify playlist or whatever, but a full mix. So I took a whopping 90 minutes out of my hectic schedule of checking twitter and eating biscuits to bring you this:

It's nothing too fancy, just some tunes I've been enjoying recently and a few old classics. Added in something new from the up-coming Bloodsport album in there too, so if you fancy hearing something before the release date, check it out.

Also, sorry to anyone from NTS offended at my mangling of your artwork templates, but I just couldn't resist once I'd seen that NTS backwards is STN (or satan if you want to get 'remove the vowels' about it)

Enjoy!

SWFP

Out today is a new little single, which is also the second track you can hear from the new album Bloodsport. It's called Sigourney Weaver Fanclub President, and it's backed with 3 remixes. One from Benoit Pioulard, one from Pye Corner Audio, and one from r beny. 

It's pay what you want, but all proceeds will be going to UNICEF's Ukraine appeal: https://www.unicef.org.uk/donate/donate-now-to-protect-children-in-ukraine/

It's a real big bastard of a track, and probably one of the most aggressive things I've done as satan, for a while at least anyway. I polished it off last year, when the nights were dark and cold, and weirdly enough, did the most on it when my beloved Aston Villa were thumping Arsenal 3-0. The Premier League put some games on pay per view, even though they were behind closed doors because of Covid, so I went upstairs rather than pay the money to watch it (we had about 4 games paywalled IIRC, which was super irritating) and finished off this bad boy. Time well spent.

The shirt on the front cover is this one  I picked up from Girls on Tops: https://www.girlsontopstees.com/shop/sigourney-weaver-t-shirt and the name is just a stupid thing I came up with, as who doesn't like Sigourney Weaver? She's absolutely badass.

Tour (again)

Wow, it's March already... to be honest, I've been working on so much over the past few months, it's been a case of "tour? oh yeah, that's miles away" - well Gavin you idiot, it's here now and you've about 23 days to get ready.

Anyway, I thought I'd use this meagre space that I have on the internet to shine a light on who is coming with me on this little jaunt around the UK. I've made a playlist using Bndcmpr, which lets you assemble playlists based on Bandcamp links, which is nicer for the artists and quicker too - Spotify constantly fucking breaks on my computer, which is a real on-the-nose assesment of it's worth to be honest. The playlist is here: https://bndcmpr.co/80b8c7ab and contains 2 songs from each act I'm playing with.

Starting in Shipley, Dean McPhee will be playing with me, which I'm really excited about, as he's one of the best things about the music scene in Bradford and it's surrounds. He's a really nice guy, and his music is beautiful: just big fat layers of guitar ambience slowly unfurling. He's a great guitar player too, and enjoys a laugh, which is always handy. Join us at Shipley's finest beer shop, The Triangle on the 23rd.

Western Edges is a name that might not be familiar to you, but the person behind it will be. It's the brainchild of Richard Adams, who was in one of my favourite bands of all time, Hood. He's also the man behind the Declining Winter too. Anyway, Western Edges is his more ambient electronic project, and it should prove to be a really nice opener to the night at Wharf Chambers in Leeds on the 25th.

Deer Leader are joining me in Glasgow, at what will prove to be a hell of a night, if all things that could happen actually happen. Despite my best efforts, I've fallen into my own trap of booking a gig when there's something big happening. Scotland might be in the World Cup playoff final on this date, so if you're after a big, emotive post-rock party to celebrate, or some miserable electronica (that's me) to commiserate, join us on the 29th at the 13th Note.

...and finally GWFAA (or Good Weather for an Airstrike) is the project of Tom Honey, someone I've known for years online, but never actually met. He's a real nice guy and makes really dreamy ambient post rock, so am very much looking forward to finally chatting to him about football even though he's a Spurs fan ;) Come tease him, despite them being so much better than Aston Villa at Servant Jazz Quarters on the 31st.

Bloodsport

Hi!

Bloodsport, if you didn't know already, is the new album from myself. It's the 9th overall (give or take mini-albums, EPs, live albums, etc) and it's coming out on my own This Is It Forever label on March 25th. 

You can snag a pre-order here, and the CDs come in tins! How good is that?

https://worriedaboutsatan.bandcamp.com/album/bloodsport

Artwork by Cameron Steward

 

Aside from all that promo stuff, I thought I'd talk a little about the album on here, to give it a bit of context and a bit of depth. Sort of like those 'track by track' things, but with more emphasis on the album as a whole.

Anyway, the way I usually make albums is to just relentlessly make a batch of music over the course of a few months, with a sort of over-riding 'theme' going on. Sometimes it's just because I've got a new bit of kit, sometimes it's because it's sunny, sometimes because I want to make things faster, but whatever it is, it usually bleeds into everything from that time period before I cut it off and assemble it into an album. Sometimes tracks won't make the cut, but will end up sounding fairly similar to other stuff that didn't make the cut on previous albums, so they'll become best friends and be released together. Funny how that goes.

Bloodsport is pretty much all built from the ground up, just me in my little box room in Saltaire. One track was me re-tooling a fairly old idea that basically had all that idea scraped out of it in the end, and one was supposed to be for a split that didn't happen, where we would be trying to use old trance chord progressions and make them into swirly ambient stuff. Probably for the best that it didn't happen.

The first three are supposed to be a sort of 'mini suite' - I was a bit bored of constantly doing ambient openers, and having albums try to grow from a slow start. I thought this time, I'll introduce the record with some unsettling guitar loops that pan from left to right at a pretty horrific speed (Je Suis Désolé), before settling into something more serene, before that gives way to piercing bass dread notes and jungle breaks (Bis Ich Komme). Then that sifts into probably the biggest sounding thing I've ever done: Sigourney Weaver Fanclub President (getting better at track titles aren't I?) 

The two Absolute Living Hell tracks were actually done as individual tracks after I'd bought a Volca Beats drum machine - I ran it through my guitar pedal setup and got these really gnarly sounds (mainly due to some distortion) and so built two tracks up, not realising that they both sounded pretty similar. Oops! I don't think I could've gotten away with them being seperate entities, so I thought I'd better call them 1 & 2. I blame the drum machine's pitching and the fact I didn't alter it when I ran them through my pedals - of course the bass notes would impact the key, Gavin - jesus man, get it together.

Perfekt was a little skit I'd come up with whilst listening to a lot (and I mean a LOT) of Boards of Canada. You can absolutely tell, too. Anyway, I didn't want to spin it into a long track as it just didn't need to be any longer than it is - I'm trying to get away from doing that too, making songs long just for the sake of it.

Slur They Words is a bit of a weird one. I'd been buying sample packs pretty regularly since I moved to a solo outfit, mainly due to technical limitations, but also because they can be quite fun. I bought this one called Grime Vocals, which I thought I'd only use as a bit of flavour in certain tracks - y'know, pitch down a few 'yeahs!' or whatever, but then this one rap really caught my attention, and lo and behold, I fit it to this beat I'd made and it sounded ace. Really dark & sinister. "Would satan fans like it?" I wondered, before realising that if they didn't, that's not up to me. Just do what you want and see where it goes - that's a good way to be I think. Anyway, yes - it's a satan track with a rap. 

Apex Redditor is the one track title I get most reaction too, and I kid you not - I woke up with it in my head, y'know how you wake up sometimes and you're still groggy and your mind is just all over the place? I had that, and for some reason Apex Redditor popped in. Mad. Anyway, the track is a pretty simple one, and is about the only thing on there that isn't deathly dark and brooding. It's got a bit of hope to it, so wanted to end the record with it. I glitched a piano and added a few synths and beats and called it a day. The spoken word stuff at the end btw, is an old interview with Can on German TV from the 1970s. Thought it was nice, so added it in.

So yes, there you go - Bloodsport, baby. The album's out soon, and there'll be a single between now and then, with some tasty remixes as well, so look out for that!

A quick war story 2

I randomly remembered another pretty funny war story yesterday, so thought I'd share. 

This one was at, IIRC, a pretty big gig for satan - a launch maybe, or at the very least, a big gig in front of a lot of the band's friends and peers. It had started badly anyway, with the line-up being out of satan's control and having to shunt a friend of ours off the line-up in favour of this other band, who didn't exactly fit our sound at that point. We didn't really know them either, so it just made things a little awkward.

Anyway, on the night of the gig, they start playing and it's all very inoffensive folksy post-rock sort of stuff, and people seem to be ok with it, but as it goes on, the energy sort of goes out of the room - this was Arrivals-era satan, and it was all clicks and micro-techno with huge atmospheric guitar stuff, and here we all were, checking watches and going to the bar for a pint. I stayed in the room and watched the whole thing, as I was a bit antsy and also thought it rude not to - they were here as guests of ours after all.

After what felt like an eternity, the band ask the promoter if they can play another - I'd checked the time, and it was getting really tight, even with our customary very quick turnover between bands, so assumed the promoter would say no, but to mine (and everyone else's) surprise, he gave the go ahead for another TWO songs. This almost had them cracking on for an hour's set, at a gig that was supposed to be a celebration of our music. In the end, I think we had to cut our set short and managed about 30 minutes before the venue came up to turn the lights off.

Just before they launched into their encore however, the bass player went down in satan legend as he got on the mic and started talking about how much he liked the Leeds scene at the time. We thought 'finally! some recognition!' and as he waxed lyrical about every other band in the city apart from us, he dedicated the last two songs of the night to his favourite Leeds band... Bilge Pump. Our faces were a picture. Imagine being invited to play a band's big hometown show, only to turn up, insult them and then praise another band, who weren't even there. Absolutely superb. 

Never spoke to them again funnily enough.