Not been on dissensus much for a while, not even lurking - partly cause of this little project. This Is Music is proud to present it's first release, Lord Skywave. This is the solo project of Simon Lord, vocalist with the now defunct Simian, and contains three generations of music making - Simon's own songwriting and playing, the Lord Skywave analogue synth (built by his father in the 70s) and samples from music recorded by his grandmother in the 40s and 50s.
I'll let Simon describe it himself:
“This album was unintended - I use my studio as a kind of diary, recording ideas and songs as they happen. When I put together a compilation of tracks I'd made during 2007 I realized that they worked together as an album.
The name and most of the electronic sounds come from the Lord Skywave synthesizer built by my dad in the 70's. He only built 10 of them and I am the proud owner of one.
Tracks 2,3,7 and 11 contain sections of my grandmother Madeleine Dring's (1923-1977) music. A couple of summers ago I spent some time at my grandad's house going through his collection of old reel-to-reel tape recordings and 78's of Madeleine's music and converted them onto cd as an archive. It was always at the back of my mind to try using some of her music in my own recordings. She was influenced by impressionist composers like Debussy and Poulenc, who were among the first to explore atonal harmonies and dissonance. At the same time they were composing, a similar thing was happening with writing, people breaking the rules of composition to express the inner world. Writers like Baudelaire described city life in a way that was surreal and explored people's dreams. I was interested in combining the ideas of impressionism, both in music and writing, to twist the modern sounds of dubstep, r'n'b and soul. To try mixing an 'urban' sound with a more abstract or psychedelic sensibility. Basically a bit of a reaction against most music from the city 'keeping it real'” - Simon Lord, April 2008
From all good record shops, iTunes, etc etc
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Soon come:
THISIM001 Barringtone - Snake In The Grass
THISIM004 Mujava - Township Funk
THISIM005 Sisters Of Transistors - The Don
THISISIM006 Lord Skywave - Various and TRG remixes
I'll let Simon describe it himself:
“This album was unintended - I use my studio as a kind of diary, recording ideas and songs as they happen. When I put together a compilation of tracks I'd made during 2007 I realized that they worked together as an album.
The name and most of the electronic sounds come from the Lord Skywave synthesizer built by my dad in the 70's. He only built 10 of them and I am the proud owner of one.
Tracks 2,3,7 and 11 contain sections of my grandmother Madeleine Dring's (1923-1977) music. A couple of summers ago I spent some time at my grandad's house going through his collection of old reel-to-reel tape recordings and 78's of Madeleine's music and converted them onto cd as an archive. It was always at the back of my mind to try using some of her music in my own recordings. She was influenced by impressionist composers like Debussy and Poulenc, who were among the first to explore atonal harmonies and dissonance. At the same time they were composing, a similar thing was happening with writing, people breaking the rules of composition to express the inner world. Writers like Baudelaire described city life in a way that was surreal and explored people's dreams. I was interested in combining the ideas of impressionism, both in music and writing, to twist the modern sounds of dubstep, r'n'b and soul. To try mixing an 'urban' sound with a more abstract or psychedelic sensibility. Basically a bit of a reaction against most music from the city 'keeping it real'” - Simon Lord, April 2008
From all good record shops, iTunes, etc etc
--------------------------------
Soon come:
THISIM001 Barringtone - Snake In The Grass
THISIM004 Mujava - Township Funk
THISIM005 Sisters Of Transistors - The Don
THISISIM006 Lord Skywave - Various and TRG remixes
Track 3 was my favourite, generally I really liked the stuff that used the recordings of his grandmother