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| September 2010 Very shortly Steve Palmer's 'Mooch' project will be releasing a new album of material entitled 'Train Klang', for which I contributed monochord and gliss guitar. I've heard samples of the finished work and it's pretty mind-blowing stuff. It's shaping up to be a krautrock/ambient/electronic extravaganza!
June 2010 SOLITUDE The third volume of my 'Soundscapes' series is now available for download. As hinted at earlier in the year it contains some very relaxing tracks featuring fairly minimal instrumentation. A taster video can be seen here. Only available as a 192kb mp3 download.
April 2010 Damn, recording handpans and tongue drums is difficult! There are so many harmonics and overtones - especially on the Halo.
March 2010 This year will see an album of handpan / tongue drum / monochord music - working title is 'Solitude' and it will be a very ambient album. Keep your ears peeled!
February 2010 I'm having lots of fun with the monochord and tongue drums, they're leading me down a much more relaxing path. In fact I've recently finished a piece with the HAPI, monochord, singing bowl and guitar which may be the most laid back and beautiful piece of music I've ever created. However, I could listen to it in the morning and think it's total drivel! We've all been there...
January 2010 On the back of last years release comes Soundscapes Volume 2 - the second in a series of fairly laid-back instrumental releases. Twelve tracks to bring you gently into 2010, only available as a 192kb mp3 download. Music for watching the snow fall...
December 2009 Handpan page added. There will be more of these featured on the Soundscapes Volume 2 release.
June 2009 Erpitaph & Erpitaph 2: Hoovering the Void With some of these tracks floating around the web it seems like time to host the two albums here in their logical home. These two pieces of Ozric Tentacles fan history are available for the first time in three years as an mp3 download. Originally compiled by me in 2003 and 2006 respectively, and featuring a diverse collection of musicians; they are a combination of Ozrics inspired original tunes and cover versions approached from a variety of angles. Full colour artwork with contact details is included in the files, so please contact the musicians involved and let them know how much you enjoy their work.
March 2009 After a long wait I've finally got a cd's worth of material that I'm happy to release. Some of these tunes go back to winter 2007 so by my standards they've been stewing for a very long time indeed! Soundscapes Volume 1 may be the first in an ongoing series of predominantly gentler ambient works, or it may not... This will not be burnt onto CD, the only version I'm making available is the 192kb mp3 download from this site.
November 2008 A first for me - virtual recording for someone elses album. Steve Palmer, author and fellow musician asked me to provide gliss guitar for his upcoming 'Shroomshire' album. He emailed me an mp3 of the track in question, I recorded a couple of gliss guitar tracks and emailed everything back to him a few days later. Voila! Appearing on another artists album without leaving the comfort of my armchair.
October 2008 The lightshow returns! After a considerable hiatus I finally dusted off the video gear and ran the lightshow for Mooch's first gig in many years at Awakenings in Burton on Trent. For those who are only familiar with Mooch's electronic work this gig would have been a bit of a surprise as they gigged as a three piece, bass, drums & guitar/occasional synth. Space rock! Pictures are here.
September 2008 This has been a odd year for me, musically speaking. For the first time in eight years I haven't put out a single CD of music (excluding my CWS side project). Nor does it actually look like I'll have anything before the year's out. Not that I've given up - I'm still producing tunes, but nothing that I'm happy to put out into the public domain. In addition, after the complete indifference towards my last CD I'm less inclined to spend time and money on materials for CD artwork & copying.
It's likely that the odd tune will be uploaded here (I've scrapped the WhySpace page), but don't hold your breath for an album!
Weird times eh...
July 2008 I've not long taken delivery of my new HAPI drum www.hapitones.com and I'm having a great time with this instrument. For those who don't know, the hapi is a tuned steel 'tongue' drum which resonates like a singing bowl but is played with hands or soft mallets like conga/bongos etc. It has a lovely ringing sound that's very calming - especially if you get one tuned to a minor key.
I'm still looking to get a Hang (do a YouTube search on 'hang drum'), but as they're sold out new until 2010, and so ridiculously expensive in the second-hand market, I'm more than happy (no pun intended) to have my hapi - in fact I'm seriously considering getting one custom-tuned.
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