I also created some YouTube videos using some of the images that Mog Fry produced for me around the time of the release of the Neureille album, Sufi Pataphysics. The inspiration for the objects depicted largely came from 2 books I was reading around then - The Art of Memory by Frances Yates and The White Goddess by Robert Graves. I used Motion to animate the objects but once again I must hold my hand up and say that it’s not really my thing. Like most tools you need to spend a lot of time working on it before you can do anything worthwhile and I must admit, I can’t really be bothered. Anyway here below is my 1st effort, dating back to 2021 - a video to accompany one of the songs from the afore-mentioned album, Turquoise. Again the drummer is Paul Wigens and the bassist is Everton Hartley and the track also features Mike Dennis on violin. It’s the 1st song that Mike ever heard me play and afterwards he came up and said that he loved the song so it was fitting that he should have contributed to its recording.
It’s about time I posted something else on here. Something easy is to start linking to the various Neureille YouTube videos I’ve put up since 2021. This one has had the most views so it’s a good place to start. There’s a team of 5 involved. Paul Wigens played drums, Everton Hartley played bass guitar, Jim Barr did the recording, Adrian Price was in charge of photography and I played guitar, sang and footed the bill. The other 4 were excellent but I wasn’t particularly happy about my contribution. It was the first time I’d done anything like this and I must admit I felt a bit uncomfortable. My live vocals were pretty shaky and I ended up re-recording the vocals when we came to mixing and that then made it difficult to make sure it was all lip-synced especially as the way I phrase the vocals can change on every performance. Still it gives a reasonable impression of how we might play live. Actually the main reason for doing this project was that it was in 2021 and the possibility of playing live anywhere was still non-existent as it had been since March 2020. Finally there is a 6th person to mention being my good friend Blair who is a video mastering professional/expert and he very kindly used his post production skills to make the whole thing more beautiful.
just wanted to put something about the new neureille ep which is called waspish and so here are a few words. the 1st studio date was 3rd september 2024 and i recorded pretty much all of my parts which comprised guitars, piano, 2 different types of organ and vocals. then on the 8th november 2024 we went into the studio again and mel thompson played flute for a 4 hour session and jim barr who was doing the recording anyway so is paramount to the project added double bass to 2 songs and one of his electric basses for a 3rd song. jim also programmed the drums he’s good at that. so on the 3rd and last day (28th november 2024) the drum programming was tightened up everything was mixed etc the vocals mainly are not different from how they were recorded apart from a couple of times when effects were added other than eq which is a dark art to me but luckily jim’s good at that too. the only other thing was a synthesiser bass line on the last track which i played. i’m ashamed to admit it but we corrected 2 or 3 bum notes in the vocals i insist that i prefer digital trickery to multiple takes. pretty much how i work is i do 2 takes (no run throughs) and the 2nd take is goihg to be the best one but if a bit is crap then hopefully you can merge in a bit from the 1st take. finally a word about the artwork. a sheep with a wasp’s head was a vision i had at a historic site where multiple ancient souls in theory connect with me if that makes sense. no? never mind it happened and i trusted that my artistic collaborator, mog fry, would be able to conjure that up for me in the style of the italian illustrator antonio rubino. as far as i’m concerned she excelled. the ep is available on all or at least most streaming platforms. need i list them out for you surely you know them. i wonder what is good about pandora in that most people in the usa who stream my music use pandora but it is not as yet available outside north america possibly mexico. sorry i don’t do much social media but you can always contact me via the neureille channel on youtube.
14 January 2025 - a typically shoddy piece of work - why? - because I can
firegiver.com goes back a long time at first I used HTML then progressed to wordpress and now I’ve started using squarespace so I’ve got a large backlog of posts that I’m thinking to reintroduce as and when. this one dates back to august 2016. it was called images and this is how I introduced it back then :-
this is the first part of a two part series where i present some snaps taken mostly late at night on my way home from somewhere i walk a lot usually the same old streets but there’s a number of directions and always variations on route i seem to stumble on the surface of buildings with roofs and turrets then slip sideways into a cobbled alley that leads towards a dungeon not really but you never know
i admit i’ve tampered with some of the images but largely they are as they appeared on the night which never of course gives justice to what you actually see and some are daytime intrusions that i deemed worthy for reasons of chiaroscuro and i added a spontaneously created soundtrack not while i was watching the footage separately and took edits from forty odd minutes of recorded music if that’s what you can call it i don’t see what else to call it for now maybe later i’m working on my theories
best viewed on full screen in a darkened room
2024 - a great year for music if not for democracy and the future of the human race (and countless other species). Isn’t every year a great year for music? Probably. There is much ground for dismay when considering the current state of the music industry but there are positives. For example, prior to music streaming I couldn’t possibly have afforded to go out and buy 180 or so records or cds in a year, it was more like 3 or 4 a month rather than 3 or 4 a week. I started to subscribe to Apple Music in 2016 and after a while I coughed up an extra pound or so per month to have an extended library. You don’t have to download anything if you’re always connected to the internet but I don’t always want to be connected to the internet and I also want to see what it is I’ve decided to download so that I can make sense of what I’m listening to and appraise it. Admittedly there’s lots of tracks that I haven’t listened to yet - I would have to be listening to music 6 hours a day to hear everything and there’s a distinction between having some music played while you’re doing something else and actually listening properly to the music that’s on. Let’s face it, without wishing to sound elitist, many people never listen properly to music in the way that I mean there, even if they’re at a gig.
Anyway I’ve done a little exercise to indicate my taste and list the albums, eps & singles that I’ve downloaded in 2024 that were released in 2024. A few of these are re-releases of material recorded in the past but they’re mostly current. The fact that most of them are in the category that I might refer to as alternative or underground hip-hop indicates what I feel is the most dynamic area of music in the current era.
The order is roughly chronological by when downloaded but where the same artists are involved I’ve tried to group those releases together which might possibly indicate that they are favourites but also indicates that these artists have been very prolific this year.
Bruiser Wolf - My Story Got Stories
Nicholas Craven & Boldy James - Penalty of Leadership
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica & Vida Mikneviciute - Songs of Fate
Jack DeJohnette, John Medeski, John Scofield - Hudson
Gao Hong & Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde - Sklyark Call
Gao Hong & Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde - Alondra
Blu - Royal Blu
Blu & Evidence - Los Angeles
Blu & Exile - Love (the) Ominous World
Alice Coltrane - Shiva-Loka (Live) - a live recording from 1971 released this year
John Surman - Words Unspoken
AJ Suede - Opta Mystic - one of the artists I got to see live this year he’s also further down the list
Ol’ Burger Beats - 74: Out of Time
Julian Lage - Speak to Me
Oneshotonce & Driveby - 6Wd
Moor Mother - The Great Bailout - I saw her perform this back in March
MIKE & Tony Seltzer - Pinball
MIKE - Pieces of a Dream - another artist I saw this year
Tierra Whack - World Wide Whack
Mike Dennis - Stop Time - a good friend of mine, I was at the album launch
Real Bad Man & Lukah - Temple Needs Water, Village Needs Peace
Real Bad Man, Lukah & billy woods - The Initiates Piece
Elcamino, Real Bad Man & Black Soprano Family - The Game is the Game
Bill Frisell - Orchestras (Live) - I saw him with his trio in May
Anelis Assumpção - Encore un Tour
Cavalier - Different Type Time
Cavalier & Child Actor - CINE
The Alchemist, Oh No & Gangrene - Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
The Alchemist - The Alchemist Sandwich - The Alchemist is one of the contenders for most prolific artist
Big Sean & The Alchemist - Together Forever
The Alchemist - The Genuine Articulate
Roc Marciano & The Alchemist - The Skeleton Key
Brother Ali & Un Just - Love & Service
Fred Hersch - Silent, Listening
Iglooghost - Tidal Memory Exo
Brad Mehldau - Après Fauré - also further down the list with MTB
Mach-Hommy - #RICHAXXHAITIAN
Mach-Hommy - Pray for Haiti
Hermeto Pascoal - Pra vocẽ, Ilza
Finch, Fritz Rango & Quelle Chris - Solstice
Shrapknel & Controller 7 - Nobody Planning to Leave
R.A.P. Ferreira & Fumitake Tamura - the First Fist to Make Contact When We Dap - saw Mr Ferreira in June
Big Hit, Hit-Boy & The Alchemist - Black & Whites
Big Hit & Hit-Boy - Bigger Than Life
Open Mike Eagle - Sir Rockabye
Hiatus Kaiyote - Love Heart Cheat Code
Wave Generators - After the End
Fatboi Sharif & Roper Williams - Something About Shirley - Fatboi Sharif is another contender for prolificacy
Fatboi Sharif & Roper Williams - Planet Unfaithful
Fat Tony & Fatboi Sharif - Brain Candy
Fatboi Sharif & The Lasso - Teething
Fatboi Sharif & Driveby - Malik
JPEGMAFIA - I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU
Wiki, Tony Seltzer & SPRTYK - Flopped on the Flip
Navy Blue - Memoirs in Armour
Meshell Ndegeocello - Trouble (Edit)
Alexei Lubimov & Viktoria Vitrenko - Valentin Silvestrov: Forgotten Word I Wished to Say
violets & Kenny Segall - cherry (Kenny Segall Remix)
Kenny Segall & K-the-i??? - Genuine Dexterity
Jody Prewett - River Songs - I met Jody earlier this year, he’s very talented
Liv.e - PAST FUTUR.e
Jamila Woods & oddCouple - Teach Me
Dona Onete - Bagaceira
Dona Onete - Tipiti
Sedução Ranchista & Dona Onete - Banzeiro
Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper - Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper
Rhys Langston & Steel Tipped Dove - Polyglot on Chloroform
AJ Suede & Steel Tipped Dove - Reoccurring Characters
Steel Tipped Dove & Alaska_Atoms - Reverberation of a Dead Man’s Ego
Steel Tipped Dove & Fatboi Sharif - The Corpse of Van Helsing
DJ KOCO aka SHIMOKITA - Brazil 45s (DJ Mix)
Yaeji - booboo
Wayne Shorter - Celebration, Volume 1 (Live) - recording of a concert from 2014
Quelle Chris, Pink Siifu & Denmark Vessey - Shining Brighter
The Great Unfurling - Ambition Burning - another friend I’m looking forward to hearing the band he’s forming
Your Old Droog - Movie
Latvian Radio Choir, Kaspars Putninš & Sigvards Klava - Angele Dei
Latvian Radio Choir & Sigvards Klava - Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Aletheia
Conductor Williams & Rei the Imperial - OPERATION FLAMETHROWER
Conductor Williams - Conductor We Have a Problem, Pt. 3
Nappy Nina & Swarvy - Omakase
Nappy Nina - Nothing is My Favorite Thing
Phiik & Lungs - Carrot Season
L’orange - The Manipulation
Flee Lord - Raised in the Sand
E L U C I D - REVELATOR
Mutant Academy - Keep Holly Alive
Xiaowen Shang - Music of Silence
Hemlock Ernst & Icky Reels - Studying Absence
Philmore Greene - Whole Time
KA - The Thief Next to Jesus
Homeboy Sandman - Turns Out I Can Sell A Few of These After All
Daniel Sommer, Arve Henriksen & Johannes Lundberg - Sounds & Sequences
YUNGMORPHEUS & Alexander Spit - Waking Up and Choosing Violence - saw YUNGMORPHEUS in May
Lionel Loueke & Dave Holland - United
Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock & Paul Motian - The Old Country - live recording from 1992 released this year
Mark Giuliana - MARK
Fly Anakin - &Friends2 + YOUGOTME!!
The Hilliard Ensemble - Dufay: Missa Se la face ay pale
Juana Molina - EXHALO
Sophia Kirsanova - Miglainas rỉts
J.U.S. - Lord of the streams part 2 “Curse in the Castle”
BMT Brad Mehldau, Mark Turner & Peter Bernstein - Solid Jackson
Boldy James & Harry Fraud - The Bricktionary
Thomas Stronen - Relations
Jakob Bro - Taking Turns - recorded in 2014 not sure why it’s only released in 2024
Or Bareket - Yom
Maassai - DEC0N$tRUCT!0N
