This was intended to be a direct follow up from the Contour album and thus follow in the contemporary Berlin School theme. However, music composition can sometimes go in very different directions once the record button is hit. This collection starts off in a familiar fashion but ends up, I think, closer to my older material. Indeed, I'm expecting the tune police to be kicking down my door very shortly!
There is almost no vocal work on this album at all. The closest thing is the ethereal and twisted vocal samples played on a Roland V-Synth.
I should add that the title of the album has nothing to do with landlines in the telecommunications sense. I am referring to the more ethereal landlines that are more akin to ley lines - these lines join places of significance together, whether by passage of feet, natural boundaries or something more mystical.
The 60 minute long album is available from me as a paid download mp3. The download is provided as a bundle of 'high quality' 320kB/s mp3 files. It is priced at 2GBP. Please e-mail me here for my Paypal details or click the button above. Once you send payment to me I'll send you your own personal links to download the album files. Only the front cover artwork as shown above is provided with this version.
The album is also available through MusicZeit both as a 256kB/s mp3 or as a CD quality FLAC download. Artwork has been made especially for Musiczeit customers.
The cover artwork shows Wetherlam in the Lake District viewed from the top of Loughrigg in February 2009.
Track Listing
I have included some 45 second sound snippets of some of the songs. Just 'right hand mouse click' on the blue name and 'save as...' to download the mp3 file. All files are around 1MB.
Landlines A 19 minute monster that changes direction several times during the length of the piece. A wide variety of gear was used on this one and it took ages to put together.
Caenschten I had just seen Jean Michel-Jarre in Manchester as part of his Oxygene Live tour. Dutifully inspired I went home and recorded this one. Not quite Jarre, but has flavours of his first two albums.
The Farquin I had been playing around with this track for ages - even before the release of Contour- but it never quite gelled. So I revisited it and took some stuff away, added some more bits and this sort of popped up. Besides I always wanted to put the grungy D-50 digital cello sound on at least one track I did. What's a Farquin? Now that would be telling...
In Search of Ambient Prose Another daft title for sure. This one starts with a long drone and a variety of soundscapes come and go augmented by a rather simple chord progression. The little solo at the end of the complete track took me some time to come up with.
Dun Fell Dun Fell, or more correctly 'Great Dun Fell', is a nearby hill. On top of it sits a very large aviation radar station, the most obvious part of it being a huge white round dome. It's an impressive sight to see it gleaming on a cloudless winter day. It is even more impressive to walk up to it, and from it, look across the Eden Valley towards the Lake District. Inspirational stuff.
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