Music and Elsewhere New Year Showcase

Its nice to start off the year by being featured in another podcast; its also nice that M&E chose the most experimental song Ghosts Of Grytviken (from The Speed Of Sound At Tree Level) for their New Year Showcase. There can't be many songs about the ghosts of whales (and whalers) that were recorded at night on Halloween - by coincidence not intention - but if there are, this is one of them.  

 click here for the Soundcloud link
The visible influences are different on this one, its not an obvious choice for a song and doesn't follow an obvious pop song structure. Its more of a psychedelic trip to the South Atlantic
Grytviken is an abandoned whaling station on South Georgia, roughly 900 miles off The Falkland Islands. When the whaling stopped in 1965 the whale-catching ships were abandoned and they slowly rust away in the harbour near the tanks used to store the whale oil. The explorer Earnest Shackleton is buried in the graveyard there.
Ghosts Of Grytviken is an atmospheric soundscape of a song, starting and ending below the sea, having climbed the mountains and flown with the wandering albatross before the first verse. Yes, its a bit far-out. The drums only appear on the chorus, but there is assorted ambient percussion including the ringing of eight-bells. Its not a dancer but still has plenty of sway, the chords move up and down like an ocean swell.
Its the Italia Mondial Classic six string on lead (and rhythm) with the Danelectro '63 bass.
There is an earlier post here with a bit more background, photo's of the whaling station and the lyrics.
I like a bit of wilderness so it'd be neat to go there, but it is pretty inaccessible. Definitely on the list though.

M&E dates back to the 1990s, but has been off the scene for a while. This is their first showcase in quite a while and should be every 4 months or so now. You can get more information here
The full listing and liner notes are on the 'showcase' tab and the full set is on the M&E Soundcloud page here 
Have a listen, its all real music.

Interview for Magic Music Box

Recorded in Berlin, broadcast in California and now on the web:
Lord Litter's Magic Music Box

Introduction and Torrey Canyon:

Lord Litter's Magic Music Box International

                           click below
Interview and Music Part One (29'40"-45'15")
and
Interview and Music Part Two (26'10"-42'48")

All the shows are downloadable at the foot of the linked page and are worth a full listen through if you can.

Lord Litter's Magic Music Box: (click below)
German Language Edition September'13 (from 55"10' to the end)

Who is Lord Litter? In his own words:

Lord Litter

'The show presents the new microcosm of free music production, once known as "independent" or "alternative" music, expressions that - now integrated into the "system" have no relation to their original meaning. Music that is uniquely based on more than 70 years of recorded sound, whatever direction, from classic cassette scene releases of the 1980's to the hypermodern update studio technology results. The emphasis is on long working musicians with a unique quality.
Lord litter hosts radio shows since 1987 and says Vive Le Difference!'

(He is also a musician with countless of his own releases; the latest project is Meta Georgia) www.lordlitter.de
 thanks and cheers!

Support real-music:
(Lord Litter on Radio Marabu is monthly and K-WTF is weekly)

Checkpoint Charlie - the video

The video for Checkpoint Charlie was filmed in Berlin; between Alexanderplatz, Fredrichstrasse and Berlin Hauptbahnhof. 
The S-Bahn remix includes ambient sound and some additional percussion provided by train doors.

The passenger at the end is an unplanned echo of the man-on-fire on Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' sleeve; but we kept him anyway. Serendipity.
Checkpoint Charlie will appear on the third album when it is released in 2014.

You can watch the video on YouTube here

The Parallel Evolution of Checkpoint Charlie

In August 2013 Checkpoint Charlie was just an unfinished riff, while recording the interview for Lord Litter's Magic Music Box I played it into his hard-drive

 and left it there to germinate in Berlin.

Meanwhile, I also took it back to Manchester.
This was an experiment in parallel evolution and the results were two very different songs carrying the same basic musical DNA.
Strangely (and unknown to both of us) each version would be finished and mixed the same weekend during October.


You can hear (and download) both versions via the soundcloud links below:
The Speed Of Sound version

And
The Armstrong/Litter version

Completely different, but the same:
Vive le difference
Lord Litter's website is: http://www.lordlitter.de

Scootfest 2013

Live on stage at Scootfest

The set list:

Checkered Land
Love
I See You Everywhere That I go
The Wargame
Only Everything
The Changes
Chalk Circle
You've Got To Move Too
Glide On By

John

John

Raoul

Raoul - drums