I thought I’d share with you an article on my new album from the wonderful notreble.com. I was contacted by Kevin Johnson who asked a few questions and posted this lovely little write-up. I’ve had lots of great feedback on the album via Twitter. Many of you are asking about the physical CD, which I’m working on right now. Had a photo shoot on Monday with my friend Ary Vidot and have decided on which company to use for replication. I’ll be having the CD produced in ‘Ecopaks’ made from 100% recycled card and no plastic parts so the packaging will be as green as possible. Hoping to get the run in production whilst I’m in China next week with Duke Special. Anyway, here’s the article…

Simon Little Releases New Solo Project

By Kevin Johnson

Bassist/composer Simon Little has released a new solo bass album, Mandala. The ten tracks on the album are all live improvisations, utilizing the Looperlative LP1 looper.

“When I was 17 I was listening to the Weather Report live album 8:30 and heard Jaco perform his solo live-looping piece ‘Slang’, it changed the way I thought about playing the bass and so began my obsession with making music using the bass as a solo instrument,” Little explains.

Simon used his Warwick Thumb VI throughout the album, as well as a slew of effects pedals, including a Lexicon MPX G2, Boss Super Octave, DD-6, and EMMA DiscumBOBulator. He also tracked the project by himself, but has advice for all the do-it-yourselfers out there.

“Having the album professionally mastered made such a difference to the sound and was an incredibly important stage in the process. I would recommend anyone starting out with DIY recording to look into professional mastering if they can. And I cannot recommend Bandcamp.com enough. It has allowed me to get my album out independently on my own schedule and the site is so user-friendly and above all, honest.”

Preview Mandala

Visit Simon Little at his website to download the album.

Mandala Track Listing:
1. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor
2. West of Eden
3. Sometimes it rains in august
4. Calling out
5. Gil’s glass harmonica
6. The happy wanderer
7. Light & shade
8. Ohm is where the art is
9. The redemptive powers of temporary insanity
10. …And then suddenly nothing happened

This was my thought process this morning regarding this blog post…

• “Shall I write the Album Progress Report #3 post this afternoon and launch the album on Monday?”
• “If I can just sort out the website to point to the Bandcamp page, I could actually start selling downloads right now..”
• “Must sort out those ISRC codes first for Bandcamp.. “
• “Hang on a minute, everything is coming together suddenly…”

My new album Mandala is hereby unleashed!!

I spent Saturday with my good friend Joe Leach at the Cowshed mastering the album. I chose the best ten tracks from the twelve originally shortlisted (the album was running far too long…) and Joe worked his magic with some great gear at the studio. The sound has expanded so much from the original, I am so pleased with the finished product.

Thanks to those delightful folks at Bandcamp, you can now stream the entire album for free on my Music page. This is also where you’ll need to visit in order to download the album in whatever format you prefer; from 320k mp3 to FLAC. For those of you who’d prefer a physical copy of the album, you will have to bear with me for a little while. But fear not, I am on the case and when they are ready they will also be available on the Music page.

So where do we go from here, you may ask? Well, I’m now handing the album over to you all with the hope that you will listen and download away and spread the word via whatever means you see fit. Be it Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, or some of the fab little embeddable widgets available on the Bandcamp page (see below), let’s see if we can spread the word amongst ourselves.

There is no record company, I have no manager or booking agent. It’s just me and you guys right now. I’ve been working on this solo project and using looping technology for a few years now and I’m really pleased with the end result.

Not that this is by any means the end folks. Oh no! I am going to continue producing solo music here at Little Towers and will soon be starting work on my next project Little Alex, a duo project with drummer Steve Alexander. Watch this space.

Hope you enjoy the album; here’s a little taster x

Hello again,

Firstly, welcome back to the new site which has undergone yet another redesign. I’ve changed the theme yet again to have a little more control over the layout of each page. The photo gallery is now up and running, I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to know. There’s a great collection of shots by the fantastic Stephen Lynn which are definitely worth a visit if you haven’t already seen them…

I’m sitting here listening back to the twelve tracks I’ve shortlisted for the solo bass album. Since my last post I’ve been feverishly grabbing every spare minute to do some more recording and have come up with a few extra ideas. Which, let me tell you, has been pretty tricky over the last fortnight as I’ve been all over the shop with Clare, Duke Special, the Duckworths and Maggie Reilly. In fact, most of the last two weeks have been spent traveling back and forth to Heathrow airport…

At this stage I am unsure as to whether I’ll be including all twelve tracks on the album as some of them are pretty long. Any of the tracks I decide not to use will undoubtably end up on my Soundcloud page, so feel free to check that out over the next week or so. I’ll probably add a few more alternate takes too; I have plenty!

First thing tomorrow I’m off to the Cowshed so Joe can sprinkle the fairy dust and master it to tape. I’m really looking forward to having something concrete in front of me at this stage, even if it means having to cull a couple more tracks.

I’ll let you know how it all goes. And incidentally, tomorrow night after the mastering session I’ll be playing at The Vortex with Esther Bennett. See you there?

Si x