Free CDs

I left a limited run of 10 CDs at a Live'N'Up show on Saturday.

The CDs were recordings of my set from a previous Live'N'Up show at The Brewhouse and I was giving them away for free.

The insert with the CDs pointed people towards this blog.

I wonder how many CDs were taken, listened to and enjoyed?

I wonder how many people have looked this blog up and read some of the posts.

I don't want to seem up myself or anything but it would be nice to think that some people listened to the recordings, enjoyed the music, and went exploring to find more of my music and more information on Bonde De Wolfe, rather than just turning to what they know best. Myspace and Facebook.

Working With Martin: Blog One

Martin will be exhibiting at this years Appledore Arts Festival with a nice stereo film instillation. He has asked me to work on providing the sounds for this short visual piece.

An important theme running through the footage is fire. This is also the theme for the festival this year so Saturday was spent recording burning meths, sizzling paint, burning plastic and bursts of flame from a fire stick. (Not sure what the proper name is for the fire stick but it's one of those ones people juggle with)

It was also a really nice chance for me and Martin to hang out together and work on something exciting.

Despite my hangover, Sunday was spent at home editing the sounds and manipulating them to create interesting sound effects. This went well but I can't help feeling that I was running through the same old processes, applying the same old effects and getting the same old results.

I have another recording session planned for this evening where I will be recording some more experimental sounds, still with the end vision of fire. Perhaps I also need to re-think the way I manipulate the recordings. Does everything need to be done in the box? does everything need to be done using plug-ins? Perhaps I need to start pulling the audio waves apart in a new way.

Something from Sunday that's really getting me excited is a short piece of music I started composing using some of the sounds from Saturday. This has a really eerie drone and lots of sounds washing from left to right which will work excellently in Martins stereo installation. I also stretched and de-tuned one of the flame recordings to create a surging, bassy woosh which adds a dark sense of movement to the piece.

Despite my worries over the originality and creativity behind some of the sounds so far, I am confident that this project will showcase some of my best production and composition yet.

Joseph Arthur

Recently I bought a copy of 'Our Shadows Will Remain' by an American singer/songwriter called Joseph Arthur. The album was released in 2003 and I found it in a sale for £2. I had never heard of him or any of his music before purchasing but was just feeling adventurous.

Every day I have one of his songs stuck in my head. I go home and listen to another, only to find that song then repeating in my head the following day. I actually walked through Tesco car park singing one of his songs out loud today (although very quietly).

It's been a while since I have listened to a piece of music that has captured my imagination this much. An album that I can't stop thinking about and that brings me actual feelings of pleasure when I listen to the songs.

On 'Our Shadows Will Remain', he combines the intimacy and honesty you would expect from a singer/songwriter, but with pounding electric guitars, synthesisers, and sometimes eerie, sometimes uplifting vocal harmonies. I am yet to really dissect his lyrics but some of the lines that really stand out create a whole range of vivid images in my head, sometimes dark, sometimes beautiful.

He has had a lengthy musical career with many releases - I will definitely be seeking out some more of his recordings.

Updated Music

New music is now available on my musical sketch-pad.

I can happily say that all tracks have uploaded correctly and play under the correct titles.

Working In Albums And Writers Block

I think I have been programmed to write in quantities of albums. I wonder how many other artists are the same?

Over the last two years I have written about eleven songs which I am incredibly proud of. These are the songs that I play out at gigs and are featured on various EPs and recordings. I also think it would be fair to say that those eleven songs kinda gel together. They sound good next to one another and common themes and sounds run from one song into the next. These songs would be my first album.

So now comes the second album. Obviously I am not consciously working on an album or anything but the new material I have started working on is different. Still me on an acoustic and still writing about the same topics but the overall sounds are different. More developed perhaps, more commercial even, but they don't seem to fit alongside my older material.

This has been nagging me this week. Why do these songs feel so different? Is it that they aren't as good? Are they not as original? Is it, like Trish said, that I'm trying too hard to write new material and the result is something un-natural and not me?

When playing the songs I think they sound great. They occupy me in exactly the same way the older songs did when I first started writing them. Is that all that matters?



Tomorrow I will be updating my musical sketchpad with some new electronic music, and taking down the live tracks as downloads.

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Also, Bonde De Wolfe Live.

Making A Name For Myself

What does that expression even mean?

I was flattered the other night when somebody in town recognised that I was producing solo work under the name of "Wolfe something..." - That's close enough for me at the moment.

In The Perfect 5th last Thursday to watch The Darlingtons, alot of people were discussing my old band The Rickys. Basically I felt that, musically, The Darlingtons are far greater then we ever were, and if they continue to develop their sound, performance and style, then there's no telling where their music will take them.

However, most people seemed to disagree and felt that The Rickys displayed something else - something that got people on their feet and had people humming the songs the next week at work.

Anyway the question is not which band excited Taunton the most, but why are people more interested in talking to me about a local band that split up nearly two years ago and not about my current solo work?

I wonder whether its the sonic physicality of a rock band that grabs peoples attention, sending them home with their ears ringing, where as the sensitive, delicate performance of a singer songwriter can easily be lost in a noisy bar.

Perhaps as an artist on my own I'm too meek. When there was the four of us we created a racket, lording it up wherever we went, demanding peoples attention both on and offstage. All that just seems unnecessary when your on your own and your happy to just sit with your acoustic and sing the songs you write in your bedroom.

Maybe people don't really care about another singer/songwriter on the scene. Could a solo artist like that ever become a phenomenon? Why not? Their songs are surely just as powerful as any bands. How much more can a funky bassline and battling guitars really add to a song which touches on basic human emotions?

Perhaps you can help answer these questions after watching me play at The Perfect 5th next month.

Free Music By Bonde De Wolfe

Below is a link to my musical sketchpad where I have two songs recorded live at The Brewhouse Theatre from a recent Live'N'Up gig.

Bonde De Wolfe Live

The Tracks are free to download.

Also on the site you will find a track from my soon to be released EP.

Thankyou