Hello there once again.  You may notice I haven’t been adding expansive reams of content here, but I assure you I have been spending plenty of time making music.

Amongst a few things I have a new little project called ‘the ship shape’ which is an outlet for making quirky dancing music without vocals. It’s pretty fun.

Here are the first two of those:

I haven’t stopped with Birds in Branches though. Not at all. Shifting focus back here to finish some more new stuff soon with refreshed vigour.

And thanks to all who keep reminding me to play some shows. I hear you, I really do.

*internet hugs*

So here is a new song.

It is for (and kind of about) music lovers.

Love from Adam.

I’ve been working on some new stuff lately, here’s a quick live preview of one of the latest songs ‘I am the branch’.  Hope you enjoy the newer sound, much more synth and samples and less real instruments.

 

 
Trivia: it was scorching hot the day I decided to record this.  My studio must be like the hottest room in the whole apartment building too, so you can look close to see my tshirt and the blofeld keys are dripping wet with sweat.

I don’t know why you would want to know/look, but then isn’t the point of trivia is to be trivial?  *mind explosion*

GearNerd Moment:

I am making these latest songs totally on the Octatrack (the black sampler thing for non gearnerds still reading), and loving it.  Admittedly I’ve cursed it more than any machine I’ve owned, but in the end it is such a creative way to work. I’ll mix in Reaper, but try to do as much as possible in the sampler first.

I’m playing a show!  A rare thing at the moment I know, so come if you can.
It’s a cool venue (our own church building) and I’m supporting a cool band, Shed Muzak.

Here is the info and the facebook event.

And here is Nai in the promo vid.  Ain’t she pretty?

Well hello internet! I haven’t seen you since back….you know…..at that thing…. Anyway how have you been?!

Yes, yes I know. I’ve been a little light on the sharing of news lately.
I have been doing plenty, but in small incremental pieces that never quite triggered an update. My bad. I must learn to make small incremental posts. I must be more of a friend to you, internet, like you are to me. I will learn.

But here we are now. So here’s the catch up.
The biggest thing happening in the background has been preparing the live show.

I know my stuff can be a little hard to ‘crack’ at first, so I’ve decided that birds in branches needs a good live show, as kind of a ‘way in’ to grasp the songs. So I’m trying to learn to play my songs in such a way. It is slow and humble work, and I should again mention slow. But I’m making progress. I have built a new live rig called ‘Cumulus’, and have been turning and tuning my songs into different beasts – live beasts. You can see Cumulus in production mode up top.

I also have new songs and sounds and material in a queue of progress. The songs are (in my opinion) getting more vivid, and my sound is getting larger. Some are not so far from some live testing and teasers already, and I am pretty excited about that.

And last of all, our home just moved, and with it, the home studio. Good or bad? GOOD. The new home studio is possibly the best sounding room I’ve ever had access to. Plus in contrast to the last room, this one is further away from Nai attempting to sleep. Much further. So I’m looking forward to stepping things up again. I have already done a few late nights, like old times. I have some extra gear and sound treatment coming to make the most of it’s potential, then I dream of locking myself in there like a crazy hermit. Here is the new space, waiting for the new pieces to arrive.

Now you may be asking yourself how you missed my shows this year. Don’t beat yourself up, you didn’t. I didn’t play any. Well, any public ones.
But that is ready to change. I’ll post the details soon, just keep the 20th of October free.

Ok so there is a fair bit of catching up. But it’s OK. Fear not. I’ll come back with more detail and casually engaging rhetoric because I’ve returned to communication. I am back.

I have made a remix. Of a band I have loved for a long while.

Here is the birds in branches version of Switchfoot’s Afterlife:

Original song is here.

I rather like remixing. It’s a lot like making a normal song, with the bonus that I don’t have to listen to my own voice 1000000000 times. That is a lot of times to listen to one’s own voice. Remixing is cool because it is not so bad when it is Jon Foreman’s voice. Not so bad at all.

Switchfoot are a band worth keeping eyes on in my opinion. If you don’t know them, or stopped paying attention after their smash album, may I humbly suggest they have grown continually even better. Listen and/or listen again.

Also, this remix does happen to be an entrant in a contest. If you are reading this before the 27th March 2012, I would totally let you vote for mine here. It may win me a prize – some UE in-ear monitors. Something I am currently saving up for, but not very close to affording. I wish all prizes in all contests were that great.

That is all for now, just worked a loooong day job day with much driving. I’ll be staring into space for a while. Good eve.

Part of me always dreamed of being in a boardsport video.  I remember paying $40 and more to import short VHS videos of cool riders as a younger lad.

Sadly, I am enthusiastically mediocre at surfing, snowboarding and skating.  So that dream was a stretch.

BUT that isn’t the only way to a video.  To my great delight, hear me in the two videos shot for the ‘Australian Open of Surfing’ held recently.  It’s a real honour, actually.

I’m in at 0.40 here:

And 1:08 here:

Cool hey.

Here it is, the first ever Birds In Branches music video clip.  It has just landed in Vimeo, and it makes me happy when I watch it.  I hope that is contagious.

Nai and I made it together, which I think is fitting for this one.   Here here here it is:

Run You Down from Birds In Branches on Vimeo.

I really like the radio.  My overall favorite kind of radio is Triple J.

Despite (possibly) not being the right sound for them at the moment, it remains one of my little life dreams to be played on Triple J.  Right up there with playing ‘the Metro’ in Sydney.  These are two of my dreamiest things.

A lot of kind people have been asking if there is anything they can do to help me get heard.  I’m still learning what marketing even is, but this is the one way for now where I really can be helped.  There is a lot of music that is posted up there all the time, it’s hard/impossible for the busy busy staff to listen to it all.  But I figure if a few kind people rate and/or review me and it makes enough ‘splash’, I might be able to get on the charts and get a few new listens.  And then you just never know, right?

So I’ve made a ‘radio’ version of ‘Run You Down’ – it’s tweaked a little, trimmed a bit, more agile for the big wide world of radio, and I just posted it on my Triple J Unearthed page.  Feel free to grab it as a free download from there, and please consider a quick review and/or star rating if you would like to be one of those aforementioned kind helpers.

http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=47392

It does require making a quick login to go all the way and review, but it is also fun to have a login.  Unearthed is a cool place to wander your mouse through, I do a lot.  Computer mouse, that is.  Unless your real mouse can enter the internet, matrix-style – in which case I would be interested where a mouse would choose to surf, and if surfing the internet is actually much like surfing in water.  Big questions for a Wednesday.

That is all.  Except to say that the new video is challenging but looking good so far, and that I wrote a new song on the weekend that I’m very excited about.  So ….now that really is all.  Thanks in advance and good day.

The interview video from last night is all loaded up.

At the end I talk about hoping the launch “is a party” – turns out it was all that and more.  Gladness.

Have I said thankyou too much?  Don’t care.  Thankyou again.

It is done.  Amazing.

I am exhausted, but very thankful.  Thanks so much to you guys that could come.  It is true to say I was overwhelmed by attendance and encouragement.  Literally, overwhelmed.

They are your songs too now, please love them like your own.

Here is the best (and cheapest) place to listen and buy:

http://birds-in-branches.bandcamp.com/

Itunes and all the other methods are submitted and expected within days in case you prefer them.

And now, I sleep.  With a smile.

It is now countable in the hours instead of the days.

Tomorrow evening you will finally be allowed to hear and own my efforts.  And I can feel glad.  And relieved.  And sleep more soundly.  Good all round.

It’s sounding like a pretty serious turnout actually, but the more the merrier.  Jump on the last minute party bandwagon if you can make it to the Green Room Lounge in Enmore at 7pm tomorrow (Tuesday 20th December).

For the international super-keen-beans I’m planning to hit the go button for Bandcamp during the night at roughly 9pm Australian Eastern time.  That can also be your go time if you are in fact so very keen.

Thanks for everyone’s support, we are most certainly in the home stretch now!  Almost almost almost.

I am writing for a blog with some friends.  I’m enjoying it a lot, because I love how these guys think and write.

If you like the more whimsical of my posts here, you might dig my stuff over there even more.

Try it on for size…

.

…

(pause for dramatic intent).

..

here:

http://www.thesparkinthespeakers.com/

Big news. This is happening.  My EP launch listening party and show has just been confirmed.

Tuesday evening, 20th December.
I’m giddy because it’s happening. I’m giddy because it is going to be here.

More details to come, but save that date.
Save iiiiiiiit……!

I’m really keen to release this thing.  Really keen.

The Bandcamp site is loaded and ready, awaiting only my click to say go.  Itunes and associated digital content providers worldwide, also awaiting only the click.

Physical cd’s here, working great, looking great.  Liner note poster to arrive in the next handful of days.

I just cannot seem to find a cool place to launch.  My requirements:

1. Cool.  (I admit my standard of cool may be a little picky)

2. Able for me to run a listening party with a few live songs and maybe some surprises.

Not as easy as you would think this time of year.  Exploring some more creative avenues, but I can’t rule out an awkward 21st style party in a fluorescent, overly lit community hall as a last resort.  Or maybe that could be my thing?  From unusual gigs to just awkward gigs.

Any suggestions considered if you want to avoid my embarking on such a trajectory.

Thanks to everyone who has been so paitent amidst my steely resolve to wait for the launch, I hope it isn’t long now at all.

OK OK OK, especially for the persistent people reminding me, here’s a little video snapshot of the IKEA gig.  Just a few little cuts from a single camera angle, but you can see the vibe.  The strange and yet wonderful vibe.  Weird day, cool day.

Sweden is cool.
IKEA is cool.
This morning’s opening party was much fun. Rain schmain.

Thanks to everyone- especially the fun IKEA superfans in the front rows and my early morning friends.

More to come later, we have a little video even.
Still in IKEA actually. Saw a nice table….

Standard rock and roll morning?

Edit:  Didn’t get the table, but impulse bought a lot.  Standard.  Added a photo up top by Nai with our new camera.  She learns fast.  Camera nerd Nai.