Latest Song: Savage Garden (3rd July, 2010)
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Welcome to my site. Here you can find out about, listen to, download and generally explore the music I write, record and publish – everything on this site is entire written, recorded, performed and produced by myself.
You can also access my music at a number of other publishing sites:
My long standing, favourite hobby is writing, playing and recording my own music. I play any kind of guitar, mainly electric, but accoustic and classical to some degree. I also play some bass, and can use a keyboard to get what I need. I write, record and publish my own music, entirely instrumental, mostly for my own enjoyment, but here you can listen to and download that music if you so wish. I share much of my music on various independant music sites on the net, and have taken part in a number of collaborations, in some places where great vocalists have added their talent to my work – some of those collaborations are available here.
I think my style of music is best defined as a modern form of Progressive, Instrumental Rock – their are some definite more modern metal sounds, but I have a much more laid back rock bias than a hardcore speak freak – probably my strongest influences are bands like Dream Theater & Iron Maiden, but with also much more populist twists from bands like Bon Jovi and The Cure. As part of five ‘albums’ I’ve now produced, I’ve done five covers of some of my favourite tracks.
I’ve put together the following Albums over the past few years – they do show some kind of progression, both in sound, direction and also my technical capability in terms of production. I hope you enjoy something out of them – click on each album for a detailed page and access to the music.
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Tortured Soul is my latest collection, and was started with the title track of same name, on March 21st 2010.
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Distant Journey was completed 14th February 2010. The intention of this collection is a progressive rock/metal extravaganza, with absolutely no compromise. The first song, produced in late 2009, is a real synth and guitar lead overload track – complex, intricate, fusion, jazz, metal, thrash, rock and a real nice melody. The cover on this collection is an instrumental version of “Don’t Stop Me Now”, by Queen. Hopefully, I will complete this work before the end of the year, if not early in 2010.
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I believe Many Ways To Be is my most accomplished work as a collection of ten songs. Everything seemed to really fall together well, from the outset with My Many Ways To Be, to the conceptual “serial” of Violently Blue and The Lives I Have Lived then the upbeat rocker in Rollercoaster. I started to use twin lead harmonies strongly here, and put a lot more space into the music – the use of electric accoustic backing also gave the songs a much wider sound, which I’ve really used strongly ever since. It’s hard to pick a favourite song here, it would be between Violently Blue (very maiden-esque) and Relentless, which is far harder to categorise. The guest cover on this album is “Deja-Vu” by Iron Maiden. |
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Inversions starts with something of a tribute to the sound and rhythmn of Dream Theater, whom I absolutely love – the whole album from that point on seems to take a darker turn, and sways between some ultra heavy riffing and Metallica-esque type moments, to the ballad of I Love, which I’ve kinda gone off over time. For a Cover here, I did something which I think is rather special – a rather obscure, and most oft forgotten track by a 80′s UK thrash outfit, Onslaught – Welcome To Dying. My favourite song here is The Rush To Nowhere.
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A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
A Thousand Splendid Suns was a real evolution in terms of my understanding of how to produce something less raw and a little more accomplished than basic 4-track recordings – their’s plenty of syncopation and dual harmony leads here. The whole album took around 8 months to record, and theirs a definite maturity that becomes evident with Magic Man, in terms of the complexity and various rhythmic devices used to differentiate the overall sound. My favourite song on this collection is No Way But My Way, though Magic Man (a musical sequel to The Wizard, below) is also something special. For a cover, I recorded my own attempt at Love Song by The Cure – different, I’ll grant you.
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Never A Truer Word started off as an experiment – I had about half the songs down on a Zoom digital 4-track, which had all been line-in’d and over-dubbed. They mostly sounded bloody awful, and were a collection of song’s I’d mostly written between the ages of 12 and 20 in various awful bands. The other part of my life brought an Apple Mac into my world, and I discovered the joys of GarageBand – so I started, by trying to recorded a song first written around 1992, originally called “Blade of a Knife”, now Never A Truer Word. The rest just kind of followed. There’s a certain rawness and naievety in the production and recording of each track, though I still am quite proud of the overall sound. For a Cover, I recorded No Respect by Vain, another odd tribute to an obscure favourite from years gone by. My favourite track from the album is The Wizard. |
I started playing seriously when I was just into my teens, and am for the most part, entirely self taught. (had some early music lessons, and a few really helpful older friends in various bands who I picked the odd trick or two off) - In my teenage years I was a member of several really silly bands, culminating in a stage appearance when I was 17 at some Charity School Concert.
Over the years, my real interest in my music, has been writing and recording my own songs. Back in the 80′s, I used an
Amstrad 4-track tape-recorder, and the general quality was atrocious. In the 90′s, I bought a digital Zoom Multi-track, and to be frank, it wasn’t all that much better.
However, following a significant gap where things like wives childrens, mortgages and debt were aquired, I did little save work. Then I bought an Apple Mac…..
Today, I record songs using GarageBand with occasionally tweaking in Logic Pro. Logic is far superior, but to achieve what I’ve done with GarageBand, takes me about 10 times as long, so i don’t use it much. I’ve recorded almost two complete ‘albums’ of songs in the last 2 years, which are complete productions, save vocals and regardless of their shortcomings, I am really quite proud of them. In 2006, I recorded most of “Never a Truer Word”, the title track being the first complete and proper song I ever wrote, probably around 1990. In 2007, I’ve recorded a bunch of songs, under the name of “A Thousand Splendid Suns” (the first track I put down). Here, you can download and listen to my songs, feel free to comment and enjoy.
In 2008, I have a brief hiatus playing other peoples music, I completed a new collection, “Inversions” in August 2008, and have commenced my latest, “Many Ways To Be”.
My influences shine through, I think. My favourite style of music is progressive rock and metal, highly orchestrated and detailed music – my favourite bands include Maiden, Dream Theater, Bon Jovi, Rush, Priest, Zeppelin etc, but I also bring in influences from bands like The Cure, Ska, Thrash and other Metal bands. Influences, I think that are evident in a number of my songs.
The favourite track of my own is currently ‘Magic Man’ or possibly “My Dream”, but I tend to find my favourite is often the last track I recorded, so make your own mind up.