Well... it’s been quite the while - nearly a year apparently.

Personal life-wise, lots has changed but let’s not get too much into that. We’re here to talk musical wankiness, so let’s bite the bullet.

Haven’t made any progress recording-wise for This, Too, Shall Pass since last we spoke. That’s because of a number of factors - mainly because my expensive nice new microphone’s power supply went wonky and I ordered a new power supply but they sent it to my old flat, therefore I’ve been nagging my old flatmate to pop round and pick it up since he lives that way, but it’s an uphill battle. It’s been a fair few months, but basically the idea of recording the album in my bedroom hasn’t come to fruition yet. I’ve stopped feeling the pressure to finish/release it ASAP so hopefully once I get back in the swing of recording PV stuff, I’ll be able to put more time and devotion into it.

However, the sophomore Farseers album has 9 demos in various stages of completion. I know - I should’ve been working on TTSP, but also, if there’s the option of recording ANYTHING then I might as well follow this path to see where it takes me. And boy, am I excited about where this album has taken me. It’s a proper little evolution from Heliotropic or L For Lisa. There are a couple of themes and references that resurface (Lisa is mentioned in the opening track; track 4 has a prominent synth arpeggiator just like Bangarang! and Spark. etc) but most exciting is the overall theme - instead of looking back forlornly at the past and wishing I could make changes, it’s mostly about looking back and learning from that shit. So, that’s fun.

Given that the lyrics are about learning from mistakes and making different decisions moving forward, I’m calling the album The Graduate. Not only am I literally a graduate, but I’m graduating from my previous selves. I’m really excited about the direction it’s taking - there are your classic Farseers twinkly-guitar type tracks, but then there are tracks like the penultimate track Aims, which start off sounding like something from the Beach Boys playbook, with choruses that go off the edge into hard rock. There’s also Toll This Takes which is, as I’ve described it, a synth-punk track which was inspired by early Kaiser Chiefs. There’s just such a fun collection of tracks with varying moods and it’s not just all about relationships - Let Me Be Heard is an almost funk-rock track all about wanting to get out of a shit job and finally be heard. Think Cake meets Britpop (in a weird way).

Basically, there’s definitely stuff happening, just not the stuff that I said should have happened already. 

Watch this space.

As per usual - it’s been a while since I updated you on everything. 

This post will, as the title dictates, be about some goals that I’m aiming for. The first of which I am well on my way to achieving.

On the 16th of January, I started a Kickstarter campaign to get a limited run of my 2015 album Heliotropic printed on vinyl. It was a big ask; can an independent musician raise £1100 to print an album that very few people know? Well, when the campaign ended on the 15th of February, my friends, family, and people that I’d never met had clubbed together to raise £1296. That’s insane, and far and above more than I’d ever expected to reach. I’m currently awaiting the money from Kickstarter, and then I’ll be pushing forward with the ordering and delivering, having spent the last few weeks creating the artwork and finalising all the designs. I’ll update as we go.

Last time we figuratively spoke, I’d just finished writing the last song for my new album, This, Too, Shall Pass. I was part-way through the recordings, using my old uni’s studio. Then, back in November, I lost most of what I’d recorded in those sessions because of a corrupted external hard-drive, which contained the only versions of the projects. Yes, I know, I should have backups, but hindsight is 20/20 and it sucks.

I didn’t lose all the recordings, but I did lose a lot of motivation to get the album done. I’d felt I’d been struggling with recording in that environment - having booked in advance for the time, and needing to get things done to a tight schedule. That’s not how I record my work, though I know it’s the norm. 

I have only ever been on my own schedule, using my own equipment, regardless of quality. I recorded the vast majority of my work in my various bedrooms over the last 5 years, the exceptions being: my first EP in 2010, recorded in an afternoon at a friend’s home studio; my second EP in 2011, recorded using very basic equipment in a practise room at my secondary school; and my debut album in 2013, half-recorded in the studio at the school I worked at, and the other half in my Mum’s living room. 

The main reason that I wanted to record in my uni’s studio was to use the famous Telefunken U47, one of the top condenser microphones in the world. I’d told myself that it was for the quality of recording, but in actuality, it was just because of the gimmick of being able to say, “I recorded this with a U47.” 

I decided to focus on what this album is supposed to say to the listener, rather than how it was recorded. I feel like the album I’m proudest of to date is The Benefits of Devolution from 2014, which I recorded in my bedroom in Canterbury with a second-hand interface, a single SM57, and very little knowledge of how to produce music. 

There’s only one solution to this problem.

Gotta go back to basics.

Now, the current problem is that I don’t want to record acoustic guitar with the microphone I have, nor by plugging it directly into my interface. I still have SOME standards. Therefore, I’ve done some research, and I’ll be buying an Avantone CV-12 microphone when I’ve saved up enough. This will allow me to record to a good standard in my own environment, under no pressure, with no time restrictions. Hopefully, I’ll be back to recording by April, with a possible release in the Autumn/Winter of this year.

Thanks for sticking around, guys.

Okay. I’m apparently a serial liar. 

There’s another new track for the new album. This is 100% the last one. It’s called Reachers, and it’s basically the Ben Howard-esque song on the album. I wrote the lyrics a while ago, I think it was back when I lived in Stratford in first year (for context, that’s when I wrote most of the L for Lisa EP, which was when I was single and rather bummed by it).

The idea of the song is wanting to find something or someone and not getting the best advice from those normally asked. The titular “reachers” are those who have achieved what you’re looking to achieve, and who have the advice that you need. There’s some nice choral stuff in the post-choruses and middle 8, and with all the extra instrumentation that I’m planning for it, it should sound bloody lovely. There’s also some classic wordplay because I’m a proper pretentious arsehole. There’s also another reference made to a ceiling, another on the list of room-related metaphors on this album. You could almost play bingo with these references.

Production begins HOPEFULLY next month. Here’s to making headway! Lyric of choice: “I’m firing on all cylinders, trying to work out what this ceiling does.”

Oops, I Did It Again. 

No, not the Britney Spears smash hit from 2000.

I’ve gone and said that I’ve finished writing an album and then gone back on myself and written another song for it.

Again.

This is now the third time that this has happened! Three consecutive albums have been checked off as written and then BAM, there’s another song or two that just come out of the woodwork.

In the case of This, Too, Shall Pass, my upcoming third solo album (I don’t count Heliotropic as being solo due to the involvement of the Farseers), and fourth album overall, I had 10 tracks that felt ready to go; 5 tracks, then an intermission, then 4 tracks to close off the album. 

And then I went and wrote East Ridge. Partially, anyway. I wrote the first verse about a month and a half ago, with the intention of using it somewhere in one of the other songs, but it just never felt right. Then, a week ago, I woke up thinking that I remembered writing four more lines. I couldn’t find the lyrics anywhere - not in my notes, which is where they usually are. I settled with the idea that I’d just dreamed that I’d written them.

Then I opened up Pages on Tuesday, and found them in an auto-saved document! Damn lucky, if you ask me. 

This might sound like a super boring story, but I think they might be among the best lyrics I’ve written. I’m proud of all the lyrics on this album, but this one stands out. I thought I’d post the lyrics here for you to read. Those who’ve heard the track have said that it’s good, so hopefully the lyrics are a good enough tease.

East Ridge

Unfold me; save us from wandering This ain’t a quandary halting time My maps are creasing, rips for the seamstress To sew up my east ridge, ribs to spine

Pursuing pushing through this ceiling Trying to convey this taint I’m feeling, but I don’t Taking for granted hands in hands Staking claim for a shaking stance, it’s a note

Remould me; fix me by soldering Burn through the old singed canvases I’ve been re-assessing all of my falseness Searching the room where my balance lives

Pursuing pushing through this ceiling Trying to convey this taint I’m feeling, but I won’t Taking for granted hands in hands Staking claim for a shaking stance, it’s a note

Sing the right note Sing it by rote Sing the right note Sing it by rote

There you go. I’ve put it at the start of what would be Side B, at track 7 of 11. It makes better sense to have 5 songs either side of the intermission anyhow.

You know that album I mentioned I was writing while I was supposed to be doing work a couple months ago?

I’ve finished writing it.

Oops.

It’s called This, Too, Shall Pass (don’t question me on the grammar, it’s correct). This is just gonna be one of those blogs where I go through each song and talk about what each of them is about. Gonna give you some fair warning - it’s pretty heavy.

Phosphenes

I don’t really remember writing this song - good start, eh? What I mean is that it’s one of those songs that started with a single line that I wrote in my phone, “I’ve been talking to myself lately”, and then the song snowballed from there. It’s somewhat about what’s happened in the last 8 months for me, and about how generally I’ve been multiple versions of myself for a long time now. There’s some classic Phill Vidler wordplay™ in the chorus - “This is not the former me, this is just a form of me”. It’s setting-off point for the album, in tone and lyrical content.

Lyric of choice: “I tied my noose and, of survival, I am proof.”

The Room

You know when you abstractly think about something and make it a really weird metaphor? Robyn’s bedroom was getting redecorated for a while, and during a conversation with her about looking forward to things, I mentioned her impending new room, saying “soon; the room”. I liked the idea of my journey back to feeling alright again being akin to the redecoration of a room - the old version is still underneath somewhere in the memory, but for the moment, everything is new and exciting. I like doing this with my albums, at least since The Benefits of Devolution, where the first full track sets up a lot of the themes of the album, and then the second full track details a journey, or at least  the intent of progression.

Lyric of choice: “I wrapped myself in you; I lined my walls with what I know to be true.”

Lions

Here’s one of the earlier-written tracks on the album, a song about bad things creeping up on everyone and trying to find the lessons that are always said to be hidden in them, and the general futility of trying to solve problems that may very well solve themselves eventually.

Lyric of choice: “Be like the birds, take wing and take aim.”

The Low

This is probably going to be one of the “big singles” of the album - if there’s gonna be anything like that for this release. It’s about loneliness and feeling the need to express myself through music and being unable to. I had to hit a real low in order to find my music again, so I wrote a song about the journey to the metaphysical “low” and how cathartic it can feel - or how it can make you feel even worse than before. Swings and roundabouts. Got a killer double chorus at the end though.

Lyric of choice: “Why, when I’m standing still, do my colours still run? Shades of me are bleached from summer’s sun.”

This, Too, Shall Pass

The title track of the album was, in fact, the last to be written. I knew the album title before I wrote the song, but I knew I wanted to have a track that either was called the same thing, or at least featured it as a lyric somewhere. Something to bring a thematic link to the whole thing. It’s also the first song in about 4 years that I’ve written for piano by sitting in front of one and pissing about for a few hours. I showed it to one of my best friends; she said it sounded like a ballad from a musical. Given that the last songs I wrote on piano were for a musical that I’ve since canned, I take that as a massive compliment. It’s got nice strings in it too. And also a middle 8 that I ripped from an unreleased song from about 2012. Ssh.

Lyric of choice: “My stirrups and my saddle are looser than before; I hide behind my walls but I can barely tell the ceiling from the floor.”

A Form of Me

Always gotta have an intermission, haven’t I? This one is a piano instrumental that incorporates melodies that span around 4 other songs on the album, from before and after it, blending them together to create one piece of music. It’d be a nice place for a record to be turned over at the end of side A, and it hints at melodies that are as-yet-unheard. The title is a reference to the aforementioned chorus lyric in Phosphenes.

Twine

This is another one that could very well be a single if the situation called for it. Chordally and melodically, the track is a reference to a song called Know You, from my very first album. That song was about an ex that I felt I didn’t know anymore after we broke up, whereas this song turns that into a more introspective look at whether I know myself anymore. There’s also a reference to Heliotropic, and it having been “a while since [I] turned to face the sun”. If that’s not pretentious then I don’t know what is.

Lyric of choice: “I’m losing track of all the stems of me.”

Strewn

Another song about duality - there’s almost a running theme here. The overall message is that Robyn is, and has been, an absolute rock for me this past year, though sometimes even she hasn’t been able to distract me from all the brain stuff. It’s quite pleasant to listen to though, so it serves as one of the lighter points on a pretty dark collection of tracks.

Lyric of choice: “I’m always trying to balance midnight and noon.”

Dust

And so we reach the very first song written for this album, back in the gloomy recesses of August 2015, coming off a high of some people caring about my album Heliotropic, and realising how lonely I really felt. The issue was, I didn’t think I had much to offer anyone else, from friendships to relationships and everything else. There’s a passing reference to Lisa, as the proverbial “next girl”, who was in fact under my nose the whole time. Luckily, she’s stuck around to be the subject of the final track.

Lyric of choice: “It’s only when I’m surrounded that I remember how lonely I am.”

Moon

The closer is about Robyn. She has a tattoo on her wrist of a crescent moon, and it’s grown to be something of a symbol for me, as the antithesis of the “sun” of the Heliotropic era, which had a bit of a foreboding edge to it, with the “moon” of this era being a guiding light whenever it’s mentioned. Though the lyrics don’t sound very positive on the surface, there’s a clarity that Robyn has helped me find in the last year and a half, and this song is a testament to that.

Lyric of choice: “Incremental trust is not a sign that I’ve grown.”

So there it is, the first decent insight into this upcoming album. Still don’t know when it’s coming out - if I give myself a release date, then it’ll just turn out shit.

WE DON’T WANT THAT DO WE?

Thanks for reading if you have, and if you always read these, just know that you’re wicked <3

Forewarning - this may be a ramble.

About four years ago, during the first iteration of this blog (before all the dross got deleted), I wrote a post about how much I appreciated what a sequel can represent. It was brought on by my writing of Concept, a track that would eventually land on my debut album, which was, thematically, a progression from that of Sometimes, a track I’d written a year prior, which would also end up on the album. 

I think my fascination with sequels began way back in 2002, when the first sequel to one of the most important films in my young life came out - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I was a massive Potter nerd when I was that age, and to see the same actors, playing the same characters, telling a story that I’d READ IN A BOOK? 

(Context - I didn’t realise there was a correct order in reading the Harry Potter books, so I read the third one first. I know. Crazy times. Another very short anecdote that I just remembered; I once decided to try and retype up Chamber of Secrets on Microsoft Word using an old Windows 98 PC. I reached page 10. I was... a very fun kid.)

I was mind-blown. In hindsight, I don’t know why, I’d watched sequels before, like Toy Story 2 and The Lion King 2, etc. But I was suddenly enthralled with the idea of a continuing story, that something didn’t have to end straight away. This inevitably translated into my creative decisions when it came to being decent at writing songs, bringing us back to the original point of this post.

Obviously, I’m about to tell you about something I’m in the middle of creating.

In August 2015, following on from my massive* success with Heliotropic, I wrote the first depressing-ish acoustic song in over a year. It was a time where I felt extremely lonely, and I remember writing it very quickly, in almost an improvised fashion.

Fast forward to today. In the last year and a bit, I’ve written nine more songs for a new solo project (and by “solo project”, I only mean it would be released under just Phill Vidler, as opposed to including the Farseers or manboy). 

Look, I’m taking my time with this one. Since 2013 to this year, I released at least three things a year, encompassing three albums, eight EPs and four music videos. That’s in four years, and of course, I’m proud of what I’ve created (to some extent. There are some songs I’ve written in that time that I will NEVER perform live, nor even play alone in my bedroom for how awful they are.)

Since I’ve been able to confidently produce music, I’ve only spent around a year on a release. That’s from the inception of the first song to the final version being released. You may think a year is a long time, and in normal terms, sure, it can be. But when you’re working on a piece of (pretentiousness alert) art and you set yourself a deadline for the release date, you can either push yourself to create the best thing possible, or you could settle for a sub-par creation.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve ever released anything feeling it was as perfect as it could possibly be. And to be honest, I’m sick of that. I want to be so proud of the things I create and there’s that little bit in the back of my mind that says “could’ve been better, mate, and you know it.”

So this time, for this coming album, I’m taking my time. I’m not aiming for any particular date, and I’m even thinking at the earliest it would be 2018. I want to take as long as it needs to be perfect. That means not using any sampled instruments, which for me is almost always a way of saving time/money spent on instrumentalists. I want there to be real drums on the songs that require them, real strings, maybe even extra vocalists for harmony building. This is going to be my biggest undertaking in terms of composition, and I think it deserves it, from what I’ve written so far.

Oh, I probably should have mentioned by now. This album’s a sequel to my 2014 album, The Benefits of Devolution. In terms of style, lyrics, mood, it’s a progression. I reference parts of Benefits in the lyrics and partial melodies, there’s even a reference to the chorus in Heliotropic in one of the songs. Not to mention a track I’ve written called Twine, which, as a song itself, is a reference to a track called Know You from my FIRST album, The World’s Not Looking. That track is about having felt like I didn’t know my ex after we broke up, whereas Twine reinvents that idea into wondering if I know myself anymore instead. It’s all VERY pretentious, and I don’t care.

So basically, what I’m getting at, is that there won’t be any new music for a while. I’ve already put up the first track from this new album on YouTube, so you can get an idea of the style of the album from that if you’d like.

Or, more likely, you stopped reading way before you got to here and you scrolled past, so for the tl;dr-ers of you - I’m writing another album, it’s not coming out soon, it’s gonna be alright.

I might update on this at some point, or I might not. Might leave you in the mystery of whether I’ll ever speak again. 

Phill x

P.S. I will probably definitely maybe not stick to the 2018 idea but that’s the plan so shut up

To precede this blog post, I’m currently next to Robyn, and she saw me start up a blog post. She says, “Oh, you’re writing another wanky blog post, aren’t you?”

To which the only response is yes.

Ello. Been a little while since I updated my release schedule and things, and some things have done a little switcheroo, so I thought it an opportune moment.

In short, the next Phill Vidler and The Farseers EP and the manboy EP have been swapped, date-wise. This means that makeshift bohemia is coming out on April 30th, and the L For Lisa EP is coming out on June 30th.

There are a number of reasons for this;

makeshift bohemia was essentially closer to completion, in terms of songwriting and album artwork

to release something for a different project in-between two Farseers albums makes better sense than over-saturation 

Lisa had (until literally two days ago, when I wrote a brand new track for the EP) been in development hell - though for me development hell is a blip that happens in most of my releases - where I’d gotten bored of two of the five tracks that I couldn’t finish, and so had deleted them from the EP

and the main reason - I get to use the same hashtags for Lisa as I did for Heliotropic. Legit. I’m that far up my own arse/am just lazy.

I’ve been writing some new standard stuff too, which will be 2017′s game. By standard, I mean it’ll just be released under my normal name, and will be acoustic-ish nice music. 2017 is also the year that my side project Kings is hopefully going to be kicking off with an EP or an album, depending on when we can get in a studio.

Once I’ve got the Lisa artwork to share with people, I’ll be spamming it everywhere, don’t you worry. In the meantime, here’s the final makeshift bohemia artwork. Enjoy.

So, you know how I can't stop starting new projects? 

I'm here to tell you about the newest one. 

I felt that Heliotropic was still two different artists on one record. The first half is The Farseers, and the second half had some grit that I had wanted to experiment with before all the light-hearted indie stuff came along. 

Then, a couple months ago, I wrote a new riff, while trying to write for the next Farseers release. It was funk, blues, and alternative rock - exactly the vibe I'd been going for with songs on Heliotropic like Offshore. 

So, where the L For Lisa EP is upbeat and happy, and will be released under Phill Vidler and The Farseers, this new gritty material will be under a new pseudonym: 

manboy.

Is there any other word that describes me more perfectly than that? 

I've written two songs so far - The Many Profiles of Rose, a song about a fictional girl called Rose, who is obsessed with social media, and uses it to further her bedroom activities (if you get me); and Cocaine Kiss, which uses the age-old metaphor of being addicted to somebody in the same way as being addicted to a drug. 

[disclaimer: I don't do drugs, and neither should you, kids] 

Both of these tracks are so fun to play on guitar, and they actually allow me to have some balls in my songwriting for once. Nothing has been very risqué in my material before, but there are some fairly obvious references to those sorts of things when it comes to manboy. The EP has the working title of Makeshift Bohemia, and here's the artwork (at least the text of it):

This is like, at least 6 months away though.

You have time to get excited.

I’m back on my feet now. Let’s update you on shit. 

Recently, I wrote a beat poem about wanting to be a normal twenty-something; you can find that below if you care. 

Also, a little while back, I released the official music video for Letters which was filmed in one take by my buddy Joel! I’m really proud of it, and the reaction to it has been great. Again, that’s below if you want.

The amount of projects that I’ve got in line means that I’m writing for stuff up to four releases ahead. That includes the L For Lisa EP; a song that could be the next just-Phill-Vidler track (meaning it’s a bit depressing); my friend Beatrice and I have sorted out a preliminary track-list for our EP that is coming soon; and I’m also planning to release a Black Keys/Jack White style bluesy hard rock EP under a different pseudonym which I’ve been wanting to do for SO LONG. 

I’ll update again soon, when shiz starts happening regarding L For Lisa and mine and Beatrice’s little project.

Phill x

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvF2Td-qV9k

Heliotropic has been a bit more successful than the rest of my releases; people have actually been listening to it.

A lot of them are my friends, but there’s a couple radio stations that have been playing songs like Letters and they love it! That’s all I expected tbh, If anything else comes of it, that’ll be grand - but I’m not holding my breath.

Myself and the Farseers have had a few gigs! They’ve gone fairly well, for a band with only 3 or 4 rehearsals under their belt. We’ve even slotted in the lead single from the next EP into the set.

“The next EP?

For fuck’s sake, Phill, stop writing fucking songs.”

NO.

At the moment, I’ve got it penciled in as the L For Lisa EP. The lead single is - believe it or not - L For Lisa. My guitarist says it’s one of my strongest tracks, therefore I should rush it out and keep up interest. I’ve agreed, so the EP is coming out around Christmas, on iTunes and Spotify etc, just like Heliotropic. I’ve already made back what I spent paying to put Heliotropic online, so I think it’s safe to risk it.

There’s another three (at least) tracks on the EP, a funky 80′s esque song called Palisades, a brand new upbeat track called Tragic, and a big happy closer called Spark.

All in all, I’m fairly happy with the demos I’ve done so far, which means it can only get better... right?

I’ll update you soon.

Gah, fuck me silly - this is the bit that I both love and hate.

Heliotropic comes out tomorrow.

I’ve been working on this album for a year and a half. I think the first step was when I was playing some random chords on a guitar that I bought my ex for Christmas, and came up with the chord progression that would become Offshore. Then the other songs followed suit and, come January, Letters was the final track to be written. I re-recorded a lot of the album in my sister and brother-in-law’s mancave during the Easter holidays, and now here we are.

A year ago I was still waiting for The Benefits Of Devolution to come out. The terrible unprofessional minor record label that I’d trusted my album to for them to release had been delayed and distributed wrongly online. I waited for three months longer for that album to come out than I wanted to, and I sort of vowed to never use a record label of any kind again. And to not bother putting my stuff on iTunes or the “professional” stores at all. 

Then I found Tunecore, and as a service, it stood up to my expectations. I’m thoroughly happy with the online distribution, because they did what I asked. They even helped me out when I was enough of a doofus to put the wrong version of the track for Letters up for pre-order. And now I’ve got an album that might just be viewed as something professionally made. Just about.

I’m excited for people to hear more than just Letters, which has been available to stream on Bandcamp and to buy on iTunes since the start of the month. I’m holding a livestream tomorrow night on my Twitch account (phillvidler), where we’re going to listen to the album in full, and I’ll be able to chat to any and all of the listeners. There’s something special that is coming tomorrow as well. Mum’s the word. 

[DISCLAIMER: It is nothing to do with my mum. I’m just not telling you about it.]

But then there’s the bit that I hate. The bit that inevitably falls onto me after a release - both the lack of public interest in general for the album, and also the lack of having anything to look forward to releasing. Writing and producing music is my passion - and whilst I love performing it, the studio is where I do my thang. There’s another reason that my act now is called Phill Vidler and The Farseers - I’m looking WAY ahead, every single time I start a project. I’ve already written a track called L For Lisa for the NEXT release. 

[DISCLAIMER: Lisa doesn’t exist. She is an analogy. Get with the times people.]

If you’ve been reading these blogs (all 2 of you, if that), then you’ll know how much this album means to me as a work. The last year and a half has been the most tumultuous of my life, and it’s a documentation of it. Please give it a chance. You never know - it might impact you. Or you might just tap your foot. Either is fine by me.

Imagine you’ve got a 5000-piece puzzle. From the pieces, you can tell the picture it creates is an ocean. 

“How the hell am I supposed to do this? If it’s doable at all, it’ll take so long to get all the pieces together, and even then it’s likely that one of the pieces will turn out to be lost or missing.”

Now imagine that for the longest time you’ve recruited people to try and help fit the pieces of that ocean together. 

A couple of them sort of help out, but they don’t do much for the picture, and they give up fairly quickly. 

Others manage to help for longer, and much more efficiently. You make progress, but then disagreements start with where the pieces should go and you both start forcing together pieces that should not be connected.

They leave. 

Now you’re looking at the pieces, scattered around your room, now seeming impossible to become that calm ocean.

Then, there’s that one piece that you see, just hiding under the box. You haven’t seen this piece before; it’s got the signature of the artist on it.

From this piece, the puzzle starts to snowball towards completion, as other pieces seem to light up for your eyes; guiding you towards them.

All of a sudden, after what seems like no time at all, you place the final piece of the puzzle next to its siblings and view the piece as a whole.

There wasn’t a picture on the box, so you gaze at this sea of tranquility with new eyes.

It’s better than you ever imagined.

Heliotropic, my forthcoming album, is nearing completion.

There’s just two more things to do. One is to get my cousin to record the bass for Offshore, the other is for him to redo the last chorus of Letters. That’s it. That’s all I need to record, and then this project that has lasted for nearly a year and a half will be finished and I can move onto other projects to focus on (one of which is a folky little duet that I’m excited about).

My cousin Steve, who is one of - if not, the - best bassist I know, laid down the bass for Heliotropic, Freefall, Letters and Straight On Up when I was looking after my sister’s house a couple weeks ago. Her husband has just built a mancave at the bottom of the garden, so I took advantage of it and turned it into my studio for the week. 

I recorded the entirety of Overture and Heliotropic again, redid Freefall, and recorded a cover of Greek Tragedy by The Wombats all in that one week. Progress was an understatement. I was a bit unhappy with the title track of the album, feeling it was a bit underwhelming. Upon re-recording, and rewriting some of the guitar part, it’s absolutely cracking. Worthy of a title track. 

In the last week, I’ve been recording little acoustic versions of some of the tracks on the album, to serve as bonus tracks and advertising in the lead-up to the release. Those tracks are Heliotropic, Letters, Hope For The Sun, and Straight On Up. I only chose those four because they sort of encapsulate the entire album, even though the acoustic version of Letters has been slowed down and made slightly more minor (and is fucking depressing), and Straight On Up is now a swing, Latin style song. 

I’m planning on putting the album on iTunes and Spotify etc myself. This involves paying for the copyright of the tracks, and paying for the distribution of it. All in all, it could cost me around £80. I don’t have that much money lying around, so I have to find a job. Which is great, cause I need some extra money anyway, and it’ll be good to have a proper routine. I’ll still have the songs on Bandcamp, but I think the bonus tracks will be iTunes exclusive. Give some sort of incentive to buy from there.

In other news, two music videos may be on the horizon, one for Letters made by my good buddy Joel Blundell, which will be a lyric video/performance video, and one for Heliotropic made by Myles Wheeler, of YouTube fame (itsamemyleo). That’s if I can find a job to pay the guy.

And finally, the album artwork for Heliotropic is getting shot on the 10th of May. I’M SO FUCKING EXCITED TO SHOOT IT. It’s going to look so cool, I’m not gonna tell you what we’re doing yet, but it involves holi powder and an air-cannon.

Live a good life guys.

In the last two and a half weeks, a lot has changed for the better. I haven't been as on edge, I've finally finished Bangarang! for the new album, I've started writing some stuff with my friend Beatrice (atm mostly her lyrics and my music), and I've multiplied the amount of open mics that I've done since moving to London by a factor of four. I'd only done one before. Four plus one is five. Well done.

I'm feeling fairly content at the mo. I don't know why - normally after a break-up, I moan for months and get sad and then I fill the gap left by whoever it was with something else. I suppose you could say that I've filled the gap with music, but I don't think I have. I think it's more the fact that every other break-up has been so self-contained, so self-blaming that I've not felt capable of making myself a better me out of it. But in this case, I don't want to mope at all; I'm fairly indifferent when it comes to my situation.

I think I'm actually okay with being single, and that's never really happened. Not saying that every girl I've been out with has been a rebound from the last, because that wouldn't be fair or true. What I mean is, I don't feel the need to be WITH someone in order to make MYSELF happy. I'm doing fairly well making myself happy on my own. Maybe it is the live music coming back, I dunno. What I do know is that if I carry on the way I'm going, I might finally be getting close to growing into the version of me that I've been waiting to.

This got really fucking deep really quick. 

Bangarang! has a SWEET middle 8 and ending now, it's got like a proper hype-up bit where there's a guitar solo and gang vocals saying "Hook" over and over and it's so fun. All I need to do now (he says tentatively) is re-record the vocals for Overture, Heliotropic, Straight On Up and bits of Offshore, and re-record Freefall in its entirety. I've lost the project file so I can't just replace certain bits... sadface.

So basically, I'm getting happier being in London because I'm using it to my advantage. Maybe I should have been using it since I moved here.

So, couple things have changed in the last month. The issue at the moment that is stressing me out is that Student Finance are wankers and have once again screwed over the little poor guy. 

Oh well - everything happens for a reason.

Much like Claire and I breaking up a few weeks back. Don't worry about giving sympathy or anything; we didn't end on bad terms, and we're still good friends. Yeah, it's been tough but with this break up I'm trying to be as mature as possible about it, and that means no depressing songs that are supposed to make her feel like shit. 

I did not say I wouldn't write any songs though. I've written two since we broke up, the first of which had really positive lyrics but started off slow and then built into a fun folky song. Not using it, cause it's boring. The second one, called Letters, came about when I was watching Countdown. I found myself trying to find Claire's name in the letters that were given. It's just how my mind was working at that particular time. I'm not a mentalcase. (yet.)

So for Letters, I was wanting to write a song about the break up, but not necessarily a sad one. I figured I'd just write a proper upbeat song, but use the lyrics that came to me, without trying to censor them at all. Not trying to censor them worked perfectly; since I'm not trying to feel negative about it, the lyrics (whilst at times questionably "sad") are more curious than anything. I recorded it, and as soon as the instrumental was done, I could tell it was something special. Soon after, the vocals were recorded and polished, everything was mixed and I had the track on my phone. 

Something I do with a new song is listen to it on repeat when I'm on a journey. My journey to Uni each morning takes roughly 20 minutes, so I'd get about 5 listens out of the track each way. I was, and am, so happy with the track that it made me want to release it right now.

But I've got Heliotropic coming out in a few months. The first half of it is positive and saying "Claire and I are gonna be fine, huzzahhh!"... which obviously now isn't the case. Do I feel stupid? No. Songs to me are like photographs; they are a snapshot of your world at that moment. So the thing that has been driving me forward is that I'm happy for what we had while we had it. The second half of the album is pretty much a flashback to the shit that we got through beforehand, and as an album, I think it works.

But now I find myself with the dilemma - I have a cracking summer tune that I want to release, and a pretty much finished album ready to release in June. Letters would definitely follow the upbeat-ness of the first half of the album, yet the subject matter is of a break up. Would that jeopardise the meaning of the album?

I spoke to my mum about it, and she basically said, "Do you like the song?" to which I replied, "Yes." She said, "Do whatever feels right with it."

So basically, because the second half of the album is supposed to be a flashback anyway, I'm gonna put Letters at track 5 on Heliotropic, meaning that track 5's Intermission will be pushed to 6, and everything else up one as well. 

Letters is in essence the ending of mine and Claire's story chronologically, though it comes at the end of the first act. I'm looking forward to releasing it as a single from Heliotropic!