#evoss

How Two Doctors Are Hacking the Transplant System

What if there were a better way to get life-saving organs to people who need them?

Nagendran says the Ex-Vivo Organ Support System (EVOSS) has the potential to improve both the quantity and quality of donor lungs in Canada. The two-day transplant window eases the time constraints surgeons typically face. Lungs that have been damaged because the donor was ill or injured can be repaired: sick lungs can get antibiotics, and blood clots can be removed with clot-busting medication. The EVOSS also displays data like blood pressure, oxygen level, and elasticity, proving to doctors that the lungs are working well.

Read more at thewalrus.ca.

Well, after almost three years as our bass player, Sean has unfortunately parted ways with Evoss. We’ve had some amazing gigs together but as he’s the only one of us that doesn’t live in Liverpool he can no longer commit the time needed to be an active member. It’s such a shame as the five of us get on so well, but we all respect his decision, and I wish him well in whatever he chooses to do next. He remains a great friend!

This feels like a new chapter for us and our search to replace him has been going on behind the scenes. We’ve had a few auditions but we wanted to find someone that we were sure will fit in to everything we’re doing in this band. We found him sooner than I thought we would. Andy Crawford joined us last week and we’re already well underway practicing for our first gig as soon as I get back from my two week holiday in Australia, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a long, long time.

In the mean time, the others will be very busy doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff. Our new EP featuring four tracks off our first album is all mixed, mastered and ready to go, compete with amazing new artwork and will be officially released on the 1st April. Our brand new website is currently being developed and will be ready to go live very soon. Plus, as we have a LOT of footage from the live shows we’ve played so far, I’ll be making a live music video for one of the other EP tracks in the next few months.

We’ll continue our promotion push for the band from all aspects of social media. Already, our Hourglass music video is doing very well, with over 700 views so far. So thank you to everyone who took the time to give it a watch.

On a completely separate note, Rob and I have spent the last year or so slowly making our very own short film. A thriller (hopefully) about the nature of human greed. It’s been a long process on and off as the band takes up a lot of our spare time, however, it’s very close to being finished, with just some small tweaks on the score to finalise, so lookout for it on my Facebook page very soon.

It’s been a strange and tough few months in the studio of late and this showed as the recording process started to grind to a holt. So, as nothing was happening, I decided to go visit the absolutely beautiful city of Prague for a few days and get some distance from it all. Which, for many reasons not just music related, turned out to be the best decision I’ve made in my life so far.

I think the reason being is that we were searching for perfection in everything, and to be honest, perfection doesn’t exist, especially when you’re recording and mixing an album yourselves on a minimum budget. That’s not to say these recordings don’t sound good. They do. Very good actually! And as soon as we’ve mastered it, the first EP containing 4 album tracks will soon be available to download, and you can all hear how good they sound for yourselves.

This EP should give everyone a taster of what to expect from the album when that finally gets released some time next year. On another note, this Sunday we’ll be shooting our first real music video. We’ve got some good strong ideas of how we want it to look and if all goes as expected, it should be a really cool video. Look out for some photos of the shoot on our Facebook page over the weekend.

First of all, WE FINALLY HAVE SOME PROMO SHOTS. We’ve been trying to get these done for some months now but somehow things just kept getting in the way. We talked about getting a photographer, but in the end, as we’re producing this album ourselves, we decided we might as well do these ourselves too.

So bank holiday Monday we all met at Shaun’s Mums house in the beautiful English countryside and had a banter filled day taking photos/the piss out of each other, eating too much chocolate, drinking too much cider and generally just mucking around. We had a great laugh. The day even included a “jumping over the fence” competition (which i won, obviously) 

Last week it was back to work and recording of our debut album is starting to gain momentum. The first of the two EP’s that will precede it has all but been recorded and is now ready to receive the finishing touches before the mixing and mastering can begin. Tonight, Tony will start the process of writing some basic string and synth arrangements for them, before we all sit down together as a band to decide what works on which track.

On Sunday, Rob and Shaun were alone in the studio and demoed a new riff idea of Robs. What they come up with is probably the heaviest song Evoss have written to date.

It seems album two is already not too far from our minds.

It looks set to be a very busy year for Evoss. Already we have a lot of gigs booked, including the world famous Cavern Club on February 26th, and there’s a lot more yet to be announced.

We’ve also finally decided on the title for our debut album, which will be released towards the end of the year. In the mean time though, we’ll soon be releasing two separate EPs each containing two album tracks plus one bonus none album track for a very small price. Both will be supported by music videos.

This should give you all a taster of what to expect when you finally get a chance to listen to this album that we’ve been working on for so, so long.

Some exciting times ahead.

Saturday we spent twelve hours shooting our first music video. At one point it involved us playing as a full band in someones kitchen. Weird!

It was a fun filled day were we got to mostly mess and joke about with each other, that’s not to say we didn’t get some good visuals. Shaun played the main character and done a brilliant job. I also got a taste of directing, something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. The experience will hopefully come in handy for a none music related project I’ll be doing early next year.

Sunday it was back to the day job. A day of album vocals. Shaun was on form and managed to record vocals for three songs in about four hours. One of which had a massive ending that he nailed in one take. I honestly believe we have one of the best singers in the country.

It’s been a very busy few months for us, relentlessly gigging as far and wide as Wigan, right across to Rhyl, in Wales.

We’re getting better and better as a live band with every show we play. The confidence seems to be growing, as now, when we’re on stage, the songs seem to flow a lot more easily, almost like they’re playing themselves.

We’re also underway with the planning for a couple of music videos that should be done for around the middle of next year. We had a meeting last night to discuss ideas and themes, and if we pull it off, they should look phenomenally good.