MOORSCAPE AND THE UNEXPECTEDLY GLOBAL LAUNCH
So much has been unexpected in the process of making this album. A couple of years ago I had no thought of writing a song, let alone a whole album, but buying a cittern changed that. And after a couple of days frenetic activity contacting radio stations and DJs, and juggling that with a very busy day job, the icing on the cake has been an unexpected but genuinely global launch!
I was determined to keep this album independent and to do my small bit to promote the concept of #cashformusicians. There are a lot of people making a lot of money out of music, but the musicians rarely get the cut they deserve. We have done this a different way, first of all pledging 30% of the album proceeds to the UK housing charity Shelter . Our second aim has been to try and delight, with something slightly out of the ordinary – I mean, where else on earth will you find the fusion of a medieval string instrument and Asian percussion?
This is an album performed by a bunch of good mates, joined by the incredibly talented vocalist Emma Perry, and produced by a new and very special friend to all of us HeyGamal. These guys have taken the ideas that have been in my head for 18 months and intuitively made it all sound pretty much how I had imagined it. One notable and wonderful exception is when I left the studio at The Fuse for an hour to walk Ozzy the Spaniel, and returned to find that HeyGamal had created an astonishing vocal sound for between verses on The Denied.
The ‘Series of Happy Accidents’ theme has continued. I had no idea how Moorscape would be received, but set about targeting existing Twitter followers and connecting with new ones, hoping to get a bit of UK airplay.
At the start of my amateurish promotional process last week www.localsoundfocus.co.uk wrote a very kind and positive review of the two sample tracks, ‘Guns’ and ‘Night’.
On Sunday, Curved Radio http://www.curvedradioblog.org/how-to-step-onto-the-curve/ premiered ‘Guns’ in Sydney and have since included a very special introduction to our work in their podcast.
On Monday, launch date, www.lonelyoakradio.com in California played the whole album and timed it to end at 6pm BST, the official release time. Then they played it again 12 hours later. We are getting a lot of support from around the world, and we will have many more people to plug and thank directly in the coming weeks, but these three needed singling out for a special mention, so please give them your love and support!
It was probably something one of us said, or it could be that Emma was still laughing at the contortions I had to make with my body to record vocals when HeyGamal refused to change the position of her microphone. Haha! Thank you all. You are wonderful to work with, and I guess you will be again. Cheers!
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