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…
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.â€
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
I’ve just got back from playing the Dublin Olympia with the Duckworth Lewis Method, and thought it would be a good time to update you all on what’s going on with the solo project. I’ve mentioned it in a few blog posts previously, but primarily I’ve been using Twitter to keep people up to date with progress.
But first thing’s first… welcome to my new site at simonlittlebass.com!! I’ve been meaning to put a proper website together for such a long time, having spent the last few years scattering myself across the internet. It’s still under construction and I’ll be adding various photo and video galleries once I gather everything in one place, but until then I hope you at least like the design of it. When I moved the blog from it’s old home at Blogger I had a few teething problems with Feedburner but rest assured it all works fine now.
Back to the story…
Last year I went out and bought a little M-box mini and Pro Tools LE with the intention of using this to record the album, but to be perfectly frank all I actually achieved was grinding the whole project to a halt. For some reason I just couldn’t get on with the software, or indeed the interface. Having been recording all my demos and sketches for the podcast using Garageband and my trusty Toneport UX2 (which I’ve just discovered is no longer in production!), the myriad possibilities of Pro Tools wound up making the simplest things incredibly tedious.
So I ditched it all. I decided that recording with Garageband suited the project and I always liked the earthy sound of some of the demos I put out.
I fact, it was at this point that I decided to keep the technology behind project as straight forward as possible. I decided quite early on to record the whole album using only one bass; my Warwick Thumb VI. Having recorded several of the demos using my fretless bass, the Stick and the Triumph I decided that the six string just records better; sonically and dynamically.
I currently have ten tracks I am happy with ready for the album, with two more in the pipeline. The intention is to take the finished twelve tracks (fingers crossed!) to my good friend Joe Leach at The Cowshed, where he’ll sprinkle some fairy dust over it and then we’ll master it to tape. Oh yes indeed folks; we’re going old-school. And I have a deadline now as the studio is very busy. We’ll be beavering away on the 14th August so theoretically the album could be online for download by the 15th. Crikey..
Now, I am a perfectionist. I don’t mind admitting it folks. And it’s been really hard coming up with tracks I am entirely happy with with a live looping setup. If I make one tiny mistake it’ll come back and torment me countless times throughout the whole track as it repeats over and over. I’ve lost count of the number of abandoned takes over the last few months. I can spend a whole day playing and not produce anything I’m happy with. Interestingly, it’s the tracks developed directly from the podcast demos that have proved the trickiest to finish. I’m still working on Calling Out. Some of the new tunes are completely improvised and I’m really pleased with the way they came out.
I posted an alternate take of West of Eden on my Soundcloud page tonight. Mainly to give you some idea of the way the album is shaping up. I ditched this take for some timing issues. The finished album version has a much better solo too, but I thought you might like to hear this one as I personally really like the way it hangs together. Here it is..
I’ll definitely be posting again before the album’s finished. It has been pretty tricky finding the time to dedicate to the solo project. Between Clare Teal, Duke Special, Maggie Reilly and The Duckworth Lewis Method I’ve been all over the place, but having this new deadline means I’ll have to just let go and get on with the process of putting the album out.
Oh deary me I really have been entirely slack in posting on the blog of late. I do apologize dear readers…
I must say though that this is not due to laziness (this time), as recently I really have not had a spare minute to sit down and write to you all. As those of you who follow my deluge of updates on Twitter will know I have spent the last month firmly ensconced in the depths of the National Theatre rehearsing and previewing their production of Mother Courage & Her Children with the marvelous Duke Special and his band. Peter has written some beautiful music to accompany the songs in Tony Kushner translation. In fact, we will be recording these songs fairly soon. The Duke newsletter is estimating a release date of around November 20th so keep your eyes peeled.
I have managed to shoehorn in a few other little excursions into the real world during this period. The Duckworth Lewis Method played it’s last show at Electric Picnic on 4th September. I am (not so) secretly hoping that the band will at some point in the future be resurrected for a little tour, but at the moment the official line is that it won’t. I will of course let you know the instant that this changes.. Electric Picnic is a fantastic boutique festival about two hours out from Dublin and they had such a great lineup including The Flaming Lips, Bat For Lashes, Brian Wilson, Zero 7 and Madness. As is often the case with these festival scenarios, I didn’t get to catch any of them (apart from a bit of Zero 7 and Villagers). We played the Crawdaddy stage and the tent was rammed by the time we went on. We had a great show and it was great to see Neil, Thomas and Tosh again. Hopefully we’ll do something together again soon.
In the meantime, you’ll be pleased to know that Neil has gone back to work on the new Divine Comedy album and Thomas’ band Pugwash are releasing a UK compilation of their first three album (previously only available in Ireland I believe) TOMORROW!! It’s called Giddy- A Ride Inside The Wonderful World of Pugwash and is out on Ape Records. I really can’t recommend Pugwash highly enough folks. I have all their albums and Jollity and Eleven Modern Antiquities are always on heavy rotation here at Little Towers. Go forth people.
On another note, I noticed that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are also releasing an album tomorrow. It’s called White Lunar and is a compilation of their collaborative music written for films and documentaries. I mention this because it looks like it features some of the music I played on for the documentary film The English Surgeona few years ago. I really hope so anyway, that would be incredibly cool and certainly wouldn’t look bad on the discography. My fingers are, as you can imagine, very much crossed right now. Also, I’m reading Nick Cave’s new book The Death of Bunny Monroe at the moment (as is Mr Special it seems!) and keep looking longingly at the audiobook version read by the Cave himself (with music by Cave & Ellis). Might have to splash out a second time…
Aside from the rigors of rehearsing Mother Courage, the Duke Special band had a mad weekend of four shows at the end of August. We played the Liverpool Academy on the 28th, then it was Dukebox in Belfast on the Saturday. We then came back over the water to play the marvelous Greenbelt festival followed by a show at London’s ULU on the 31st. A hectic weekend indeed, and a real feat for Peter to put on four shows and curate Dukebox at Belsonic amidst all the work involved in the Mother Courage production.
We reunited the seven piece band for the four dates. The highlight for me was definitely Dukebox (There’s a nice write-up on the BBC’s ATL blog here). The show was brilliant and it’s always such a joy to play with Peter in front of his home crowd. It was also a rare opportunity to watch some of the other artists performing during the day. I loved seeing The Magic Numbers and Dan Michaelson & The Coastguards again. Also really enjoyed seeing David Kitt for the first time.
We had a really good experience at Greenbelt too. It turned out to be quite a welcome rest (!) as we were there all day and staying overnight so no rushing off to contend with. We all had a few friends to catch up with at the festival too so it turned out to be a really lovely day. I’ve never played Greenbelt before but I know Peter has been playing there for years. It’s on the same site on the Cheltenham racecourse as the Wychwood festival. We were headlining the Sunday night and got a great response. I’m really hoping to play there again next year.
Regular readers will remember my mentioning the gig with the lovely Kate Eden in my last post. I did mean to post again to remind you all, but have obviously failed to do so as the gig was on Friday. Big thanks to all of you who made it down the the Bull’s Head in Barnes. We had a really packed crowd and a great time was had by all. We’re already looking at putting on another show there sometime in the next couple of months so do watch this space for news. Also, Kate’s MySpace page is finally up and running so you can all scoot over there and befriend her. You can hear some tracks from the EP we recorded earlier this year and see some great photos from the Jersey shows we played in June.
Anyway. I’m acutely aware that this post is starting to drag on a little and I’m probably losing your attention by now. And I’ve barely scraped the surface with Mother Courage, which let’s face it, is gonna be my life for the next few months. If you aren’t following me on Twitter, then frankly you are missing out. I’m using Twitter to keep the bloggery ball rolling in some fashion. Expect another post in the near future concerning all things theatrical…
