Category: Recording

The debut Ambassadors of Doubt album was finished in September 2024. But, after a protracted debate, we decided to hang onto it for a bit.

Why? Well, several reasons really:

• With no reputation from gigs or publicity, the album would just get lost in the thousands of new uploads
• Some of us are less than happy with digital streaming platforms in principle
• Some wanted to make CDs to sell or give away, but with no gigs planned, they’d no doubt end up cluttering someone’s house

It was decided to take two of the songs, release them as singles, and make accompanying music videos. However, work didn’t begin until the end of the year. Meanwhile, the album’s mastering was refined. Eventually, we shot “live” video on a very cold December day in a barn in Hampshire. The footage was combined with many clips of AI-generated video, with the first music video ready in January.

Remembering Ariadne was released as a single on 31st January, and work continued on Last Minutes, which was ready a week or two later. The album was released at the same time as the music video, on 14th February.

The album, which we named Ambassadors of Doubt, is available on Bandcamp. Please buy a copy.

Or, if you prefer, you can give your money to your preferred digital streaming platform instead.

After finishing work on the OPE Pirate Radio single, I stayed in touch with Richard Stockdill, my former Crimson Creatures bandmate, keyboardist and primary songwriter. He told me that he was collaborating with Steve Taylor, a veteran drummer, singer, guitarist and former bandmate. I was invited to join them in the same capacity as before — as guitarist, producer and backing singer.

Twice shy from my experience with Crimson Creatures, I accepted with the caveat of no late night dingy pub gigs to 20 people. I appreciate that this limited us somewhat in sleepy Dorset, where classic cover bands are the norm, but you’ve got to have standards!

In March, Richard recruited singer/guitarist Martin McKendrick, who, like me 5 years ago, had taken time out and wanted to get back into music. This proved to be the catalyst for movement, with Martin’s ideas complementing our own very well, and the demos progressed at a faster rate.

As we hit July, we’re pretty much on target to finish an album’s worth of songs, which we will no doubt release online later this year. Like with Crimson Creatures, the songs are pretty much grounded in Prog, but contain trace elements of pop, electro, folk and post-punk.

As always, you can occasionally get a glimpse of work in progress on the companion Facebook page.

After leaving Crimson Creatures, I had an unused demo left over which I was keen to finish. The song had started off life as a solo recording, which I made in my teens, in the early 1980s. The original demo featured my old acoustic 12-string guitar, mock bass (played on guitar), lead guitar and vocals. The lyrics were about a guitar. Yes, really. I decided that my new version would have new lyrics, and I started to write something about joining the circus. Fortunately, this was a metaphor for something else completely.

I played the demo to Andy Bell. He liked it and suggested that he wrote and sang some lyrics, as part of a new batch of Lowly Man songs which he’d been working on. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to sing it myself. We completed the song quite quickly, and I replicated the original lead guitar part exactly, warts and all.

A few weeks later, we hadn’t made any progress on any of Andy’s demos. We couldn’t agree on how to produce any of the recordings. We eventually decided to give up. Lowly Man was finished, at least for now. And we released Pine Walk (as it was now known) as a single.

Pirate Radio

Meanwhile, Richard Stockdill (Crimson Creatures’ composer and keyboardist) sent me a draft recording he was working on with his synth tutor and his Odd as Per Even drummer bandmate. It had a very eastern flavour, and it had been nicknamed Phyrigian Pirate.

I can’t remember if he was asking for advice on structure or an opinion on the composition, or just showing me what he was up to, but I ended up producing the track anyway, adding vocal samples, bass guitar and ebowed guitar. We chose to leave it as an instrumental, and release it as a one-off project, under the name OPE (Pirate Radio).

What Next?

As Richard and I work well together as a production team, he’s got me onboard with his next project: which is another Prog band, but more sophisticated, with more influences and more elaborate production. Richard has come up with some new compostitions, which are progressing nicely, and we are recycling some of the leftovers from Crimson Creatures. Waste not, want not.

We currently have 4 people working on the songs, with the sonic palette including: keyboards (3 of them!), guitars, bass, electronic drums, and 3 vocalists. Progress has been quick, so I hope to be able to preview some of our demos on my Yammer Music Facebook page in the not too distant future.

Crimson Creatures released the Fragments EP in November. We started work on it back in February, but it was shelved while we concentrated on the debut EP and album releases, as well as rehearsing and hunting for a drummer.

Work resumed on Fragments in July. We refined its overall concept and structure, and began adding layers of instruments, voices and field recordings. It’s fair to say that we got a little carried away.

We completed Fragments in late September. Standing back to admire the finished article, we realised that it was possibly too big and strange to go on the second album, and it deserved a release all of its own.

The EP is a single epic track, with a run time of seventeen minutes and twenty-one seconds. As usual, I produced, mixed and mastered it for the band. I even did a scouse impersonation on it. It’s available on all the usual streaming services, and from Bandcamp too.