I did a remix of the song ‘If No One Else Saw It’ by one of my bands, Eyes & No Eyes. You can stream it from the player above, or download two original tracks and two remixes all for free over at bandcamp.
Tag Archives: eyes & no eyes
A heavy month
I’m finally back home in Brighton after two tours in a row, playing with two bands on each of them. I’ve just done the maths and worked out I played forty-three live sets in twenty-nine days with five different bands.
First was the tour of Europe with Sons of Noel and Adrian and Eyes & No Eyes. These are two bands where I get to make an exceedingly large amount of very loud noise, which is always fun. We started in London then went through Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Germany, trying and succeeding to maintain what others might dismiss as an unsustainable level of fun. The shows were fantastic and driving around the alps was absolutely stunning.
After an exceptionally long drive we arrived back in Brighton and Willy Mason was already waiting for me… we had a quick pint, a short sleep, then did two days of hard rehearsing. It was remarkably easy to get the songs up and running despite the fact that drummer Felix Weldon and I had never met the the other guys in our transatlantic group – Gardner Allen (keys), Nina Violet (viola) and Farley Glavin (guitar). We had some great extended psychedelic jams and drank a lot of Orangina.
The next day was a long one too, as I played with Sons of Noel and Adrian, Eyes and No Eyes and the great Damo Suzuki at the Green Door Store. It was a fantastic night, you can hear a recording of the Damo set below and there are plenty of videos on YouTube too.
Then the next day another long hard rehearsal, made better by the fantastic home made sandwiches at Brighton Electric, then off on tour the next day. As well as playing with Willy, Felix and I were supporting with our band The Mariner’s Children. Shortly after the doors opened for the first show in Portsmouth, I was delighted to learn that the opening solo act for the whole tour, Siobhan Wilson, was astounding. A wonderful, effortless voice and great songs, keep an eye out for here.
The unsustainable level of fun was once again maintained across a really enjoyable run of dates around the UK and Ireland. This was due in no small part to the omnipotence of tour manager Mido and the high spirits of lampy Tom Laurent.
On our return to London we still had the EP launch for the new release from The Mariner’s Children to do. It took place at The Lexington and went off without a hitch – expect videos soon.
Got back late on Monday night after that one, had a whole day off, now I’m very much looking forward to playing with Emma Gatrill supporting Tiny Ruins tonight at The Hope.
January 2013 activities
I’ve decided to do regular updates on this site detailing my musical activities to try to drum up some more interest in my work. As tends to happen, I’ll probably just do a flurry of blog posts over the next couple of days then relapse into e-obscurity.
Last Saturday I played at King’s Place with both Sons of Noel and Adrian and Woodpecker Wooliams. I prefer the excitement of sweaty rock clubs to concert venues, but it was refreshing to play with a nice PA and great engineers and it was a good opportunity for the live debut of my new flugelhorn (the best Christmas present ever) as well as my Yamaha CS-5. I can’t get enough of analogue synths recently. I also just got a Kenton Pro Midi to CV convertor so I can send note information to them and I’ve been having far too much fun with that.
This is my setup from a recent BBC 6Music session with Woodpecker Wooliams for Tom Robinson
Over the next few days I went up to Ben Hampson‘s somewhat al fresco mix room. It’s a little bit like sitting in a Scandinavian sauna crammed full of gear in the Sussex countryside. We finished off the upcoming Eyes & No Eyes album mixes, which I can’t wait to send off to mastering. It’s the fourth album we’ve worked on together after Alessi’s Ark‘s Time Travel (of which we only did about half), Sons of Noel and Adrian‘s Knots and Woodpecker Wooliams‘s The Bird School of Being Human. Final touches to the E&NE album included sending a few things through my eccentric, temperamental old Italian tape echo – the loveable Melos. It won’t give you an echo that’s in time and it skips and warbles all the time but it adds so much character.
Trusty, quirky tape echo unit basking in the sun at Ben Hampson’s mix room
After that Ben and I spent two days back at Brighton Electric recording overdubs for Rachael Dadd‘s new album. We were mostly just adding finishing touches after recording live takes in Brighton Acoustic then assembling a studio in Rachael’s house in Bristol to record the bulk of it.
Rachael plays a lot of prepared piano on the album, and so we’ve experimented with preparing other instruments to create unique and evocative sounds. This included threading wool through a harp’s strings, and creating a colourful desert guitar sound using tin foil at the bridge then doubling certain notes that jump out using the clarinets.
It’s been an eventful week; on top of all that I’ve managed to record some horn and synth parts for Peggy Sue‘s third LP, some overdubs for the debut album from The Mariner’s Children (also a Hampson/Hamblett production), do some “pre-production” and write some parts for Emma Gatrill‘s second album (and record her playing some vibraphone parts for Fear of Men), as well as rehearsing with Steve Aston ahead of our recording trip to The Hatch Studio in Worcestershire. More on that soon.
An introduction
Seeing bandmate Matt Ingram‘s personal site inspired me to finally put some content here. So here’s an introductory update.
2011 was a great year for my discography. I felt proud to play on a number of fantastic albums including bass and horns on Peggy Sue‘s Acrobats (Wichita), guitar, bass, horns, a bit of vocals, a bit of drums and even credited as ‘musical director’ on Alessi’s Ark‘s Time Travel (Bella Union), banjo, guitar, mandolin, a bit of backing vocals and tenor horn on Laura Marling‘s A Creature I Don’t Know (Virgin/EMI) and lots more.
2012 is already looking equally good as the Sons of Noel and Adrian album Knots (Broken Sound / Willkommen) will finally see a release, an album very close to my heart on which I played guitar, electric and upright bass, a bit of brass including my euphonium recording debut and a few other bits. There are loads of other things recorded but not yet released – electric and upright bass, electric guitar, high strung acoustic and banjo on a new EP from The Mariner’s Children, electric bass and a few other bits on a new album from Eyes & No Eyes, a bit of double bass for Kristin McClement‘s debut album, a tiny bit of electric guitar and the artwork design for Emma Gatrill‘s debut, some horns for Lulu & The Lampshades and my first album as producer for Woodpecker Wooliams.
So far this year I’ve played a few shows with Peggy Sue, Eyes & No Eyes, The Mariner’s Children and Emma Gatrill and spent most of my time touring with Laura Marling. Very much looking forward to a Sons of Noel and Adrian tour in April and many more recording projects – Laura Marling’s fourth album, debut album from The Mariner’s Children and some exploratory Sons of Noel and Adrian sessions. I’d like to get more into producing and I’ve very much enjoyed working with Ben Hampson on Sons, Alessi, EANE, Woodpecker Wooliams and Mariners – he’s swiftly becoming the Willkommen Collective’s official engineer.