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Releasing a new album! Tell me your thoughts!

July 18, 2009 in Music, Printing | 6 comments

Good god.  I’ve been too busy lately even to write about all the stupid things I’m doing.  I’ll do some sort of round-up at some point.

So, here we are.  The Monroe Transfer‘s new album (title to be announced pretty soon, if we’re all happy with it) is approaching the stage where we’re thinking about how to release it.  If you’ve seen or, god forbid, actually bought one of our releases, you’ll know that we do our level best to package our CDs as interestingly as we can- we print all our artwork by hand, using screen printing, letterpress and foil stamping, and we try to make a physical object that’s worth buying.  In this day and age, of course, it’s particularly hard to persuade anyone to buy music, when they can just get it for free, anonymously, on the internet.

The other day I had a think about all this, and an idea occurred; I genuinely don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I’d very much like to hear your opinion, dear reader.

The Idea
If I were in marketing, I suppose I might call this a release strategy, or something. Essentially the plan involves releasing our record in 2 formats:

1.  A CD, which will be housed in a hand-printed sleeve, with lots of nice bits of artwork and pleasingly tactile materials.  You’ll be able to buy it from us over the internet, possibly through a few interested shops, and direct from us at gigs.

2.  An MP3 version, which will be released for free on the internet.  At the beginning of this version will be a little voiceover, to say something along the lines of…

‘Thanks for downloading the free version of our album.  You’re free to distribute it as long as you leave this voiceover at the beginning; if you enjoy listening to the record, and you’d like us to be able to make another one, please consider buying a copy from our website- because we’re self-funded, you’ll be supporting us directly, and we’ll be able to carry on making music.  Thanks for your time.’

…and then the album begins.

So here is where I want your thoughts:

1. Do you think it’s a good idea?
2. Can you think of any problems that I might have missed?
3. Tangentially- how much are you happy to pay for an album these days?

If you, dear reader, can spare the time to leave your thoughts below, I’d really appreciate it.  Don’t worry, the blog will soon be back to my usual blend of narcissism and pedantry.

n xoxox

Let’s get Thom Yorke to record a voiceover for The Monroe Transfer’s album.

May 13, 2009 in Music | 2 comments

Yes.  It’s as simple as it sounds.  The Monroe Transfer are off to the studio next week to begin work on a new album (and you can read a little more about that here).  If you’ve seen us live in the last few months, you’ve probably seen us perform a song called Frozen field, burning field which is about half an hour long, and has a short spoken-word section about three-quarters of the way through.  Now that it comes time to think about recording the song, the question of who should perform the monologue comes to mind.  And the answer, in my mind, is clear:

Thom Yorke.

thom-yorke2

Some things you may not know about Thom Yorke and me:

a) I used to live round the corner from him. As a result of there being few parking spaces in Oxford, I occasionally had to park outside his house, and I may have caught him giving a wry smile at the sight of a very tall man getting out of an old-fashioned Mini. 

b) I’m pretty sure I saw On A Friday perform at The Point in Oxford, when I was at school. I can’t actually remember much about it, though, and no-one else can back me up on this one.

c) I was involved in a sci-fi comedy show on university radio, which featured the entire of Radiohead combining into one, giant monster, firing lasers from its eye. The heroes of the show fled when Matt Bellamy (from Muse) arrived in a spaceship, and did battle with the giant, Mecha Radiohead.

d) Thom Yorke is responsible for two songs on my ‘Music So Beautiful It Makes Me Wonder Whether There’s Any Point Writing More Music’ list. As far as I know, I haven’t written anything that’s on Thom’s list.

e) It’s possible (*just* possible…) that he has a vague idea of who we are. I know he’s a fan of online record store Boomkat and, around the time I found that out, our first album was Boomkat’s album of the week.

If you’re a Facebook person, please join up to our group and submit your suggestions as to how we might get through to him.  If you’re in Oxford, and you happen to see him, give him a cheery wave, and tell him about this really cool band he might like.  If you’re related to him (even distantly) find an excuse to pop round.  If you’re Thom Yorke himself- hello.  

(also- if you happen to be Tom Sheehan, I hope you don’t mind my using your photo.  It’s a great photo.  If I can ever afford your services, I’ll be banging on your door)

I dreamt I was a hammer & everything was glass – site now up!

February 7, 2009 in Music | 1 comment

Just a quickie today, as I’m off out to rehearse for another Monroe Transfer project (about which more later).

If you’re a follower of my main musical group The Monroe Transfer, you’ll know that we’re about to release a CD & DVD double-pack of our 20 minute piece I dreamt I was a hammer & everything was glass; it’s released on 9th March on Organ Grinder Records, and is bundled with a superb animated film by Gemma Burditt.  It’s packaged in a sleeve that’s been screened, letterpressed and foil-stamped by hand (if you’re interested in reading more about how we did it, have a read here).

I’ve just finished making a little microsite for the record, where you can see a 7 minute sample of the animated film, and find out a little more about it.  Have a look, and look out for launch details later on…

www.idreamtiwasahammer.co.uk

Nocturne for celesta & ‘cello

January 31, 2009 in Music | Please leave a comment

As I’d guessed, the amount of time I can find to post things up here is decreasing rapidly, as actual ‘things’ take over my life.  So, with about 20 minutes spare on a Saturday night, here’s me sticking something up, to which you might like to have a listen.

I actually wrote this for a competition run by a German celesta manufacturer; now that the date for the winners to be notified has passed, I suppose it’ll be fine just to release it out into the wild.  A celesta, in case you haven’t heard of it, is something a little like a cross between a glockenspiel and a piano- it’s a keyboard instrument with quite a small range and, when the keys are pressed, a little hammer inside it strikes a tuned metal rod (the ‘glockenspiel’ part of my comparison).

A nocturne is, as I’m sure you know, a piece of music for the night.  The ‘cello on the recording was played by the lovely Nicole Robson; you may have seen her playing in The Monroe Transfer, and you may even have heard her on Radio 3 playing with the London Sinfonietta in December last year.  Hope you like it.

[audio:nocturne.mp3]

In the interests of self promotion I should probably say that, if you’d like to perform it somewhere, then just drop me a line and we’ll sort something out; although it was written for the restricted range of the celesta, I imagine that, with a few tweaks, it could work out quite happily on piano too.

Two free downloads by The Monroe Transfer

December 5, 2008 in Music | 2 comments

So, here’s the quick story- we, The Monroe Transfer, were asked to record something for one side of a split 10″ EP; sadly, that’s now not going to happen due to financial horrors. So, with a mastered track and nothing to do with it, we thought we’d give it away, hoping that people might like it and buy something off us in the future. You can download it on our Last.FM page, or you can stream it off MySpace (but, of course, the bitrate’s been compressed to hell). You can listen to nearly all our stuff on Last.FM, come to think of it.

The new thing is called Joy; it’s 12 minutes of strings, bowed & screwdrivered guitars and hefty drums.  For the interested, it wanders through a number of time signatures and keys; if you’re into Arvo Part, Max Richter, Rachel’s, Do Make Say Think, Steve Reich, early Sigur Ros, that sort of thing, you may well like it.  

And, as a special festive thingy, you can also download our downbeat, glacial version of Silent Night; it’s nice to put on your iPod while walking around with your breath hanging in the air of a cold evening. We hope you like them.

We would love it if, assuming you like it, you could tell every music fan you know about it; since we’re giving it away, we’d like as many people as possible to hear it.  There’s a little “Share this” button just below this post, which means you can put this post on your Facebook or MySpace, and hopefully let more people know about it.  Or, of course, you could just email a link to people you know.  We’re very proud of the music, and we’d like people to hear it.  Download, listen, comment and share, if you’d be so very.

Download Joy here by clicking here

Download Silent Night by clicking here

Listen to more streaming music by clicking here

Variations for ‘cello & tape

July 16, 2008 in Music | Please leave a comment

So, a little while ago I made this. I’m not a great ‘cellist, but I had the idea and didn’t really have the time to engage a professional. If you’ve listened to much of my stuff, you perhaps won’t be too suprised to hear that it’s quite long, and atmospheric…

[audio:http://www.themonroetransfer.co.uk/wordpress/audio/variations_low.mp3]