For the last few days I’ve been firing out emails to music journalists, radio DJs and bloggers to let them know about my latest album, ‘The Quiet in the Land‘.

Even in this era of Facebook and Twitter it can still be worthwhile contacting press and radio about my new music but it’s a time-consuming and often thankless task; if I get a reply from one person out of ten that’s usually pretty good progress.

It involves researching who the best people are to send my music to (for example, my new album is not going to get playlisted by daytime Radio 2), scouring the internet for email addresses, crafting a witty & interesting email that I hope will stand out from the million other emails the recipient is going to receive that day, lots of cutting & pasting, hoping I’ve made the email personal enough, hoping mates I have in the media won’t be offended by what could be seen as me taking advantage of our friendship, and always making sure I’ve written the correct name at the top of the email (a mistake I’ve made more than once in the past!).

Tony Blackburn - not a Calamateur fan.

Of course I could hire a PR firm to do this stuff for me, as I did with my last album, but it’s not cheap, and this time around isn’t something I could afford.

The thing is, as much as journos, DJs and bloggers still have a lot of influence in the music industry (whatever that is) there is nothing quite as powerful, interesting and encouraging as a little bit of word-of-mouth.

And that is why you, dear reader, are so important to us independent musicians. We don’t have a lot of cash, we don’t have big record labels, agents & PR companies at our disposal, and most of us don’t have agents or managers. But we do have you

This lack of your typical ‘old-school-music-industry-backing’ isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course – I totally agree with my friend Steve when he says that now is the best time ever to be an independent musician. We can record our music relatively cheaply, put our music up on Bandcamp for the whole world to hear and download, and we can use social media to tell people about it. It’s really quite staggering how much things have improved even since I put out my first 7″ single in 2000.

But where things get really interesting is when people (i.e. you) pro-actively choose to share our music around simply by telling other people about it.

For example, here’s the new double A-side single by Tall Tales (that I LOVE) which they’ve put up for sale on Bandcamp:

On Facebook, all you have to do is put the website link into your ‘Update Status’ box and a little music player will automatically embed itself into your update (the same thing will also happen if you simply click the ‘Like’ button on their Bandcamp page). Then all your Facebook friends can just press play and have a listen to this amazing single without even leaving Facebook. And if they like it, they can download it, and maybe they’ll even go on to tell other people about it.

And then there’s always Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, your blog, etc etc … and of course you could even revert to actual word of mouth

Another great thing about sharing music is that it’s always incredibly encouraging as a musician to know that your music has connected with someone on a deep enough level to make them want to share it with someone else.

My favourite music gear magazine Tape Op have a rule of only reviewing gear they actually like. If they don’t think it’s good, then as far as they’re concerned it’s not worth writing about (if only all music critics would take this philosophy on board!).

So if you hear something you like, whether it’s my music or someone else’s, please do the musician a favour and tell other people about it – it makes a huge difference to us as indie musicians and, at the risk of overdoing it, it fills people’s lives with beautiful, creative and innovative music. Which can’t be a bad thing, can it?

So here’s some of my suggestions of amazing music for you:

Steve Lawson’s brand new album of solo-bass ambient improvisation, ‘Believe in Peace‘:

Jo Mango’s beautifully quiet 10″ single, ‘The Moth & the Moon / The Black Sun‘:

Chris Schlarb’s atmospheric ‘Twilight & Ghost Stories‘:

This EP by Brooklyn’s Numbers & Letters, who played a gig in my house last year:

This lo-fi pop genius by Pulco:

This spooky piano-led soundtrack by Thee Golden Ratio:

And, of course, my new album (had to get in here somewhere, didn’t I?):

So, what music have you heard recently that is awesome?

One thing I’d have to say about 2011 is that it’s not been boring – everyday family life, moving house and starting university have all made sure of that. Looking back, it’s actually been an amazing year; full of big life-changes, new ventures and nerve-wracking (but exciting) challenges.

On the Calamateur side of things, I spent a lot of time this year holed up in my home studio recording my latest album, ‘The Quiet in the Land‘.

As I’ve written before, it’s very different from my last long-player, ‘Each Dirty Letter‘, but I’m incredibly happy with it. It’s a loud, angry and brutally honest collection of songs about faith, doubt and confusion. That doesn’t seem to have put people off though, and I’ve had a lot of people giving me positive feedback about it which, as always, is very nice

I tried to record as many short video clips as I could whilst recording it, and eventually put them together to make this wee promo video:

I released the album fairly quietly in November, exclusively using the awesome Bandcamp platform. No CDs, records, cassettes, iTunes or Amazon this time around – just directly from me to you online. I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s downloaded it so far. I’ll be making more of an effort to promote it in the new year but here it is, available right now, for your delectation (and you’ll get another 4 hidden tracks when you download it):

Not long after moving from Beauly to Bannockburn, my wife and I hosted a house concert by Susan Enan, an amazing UK singer-songwriter who’s based in the States. A few months later we hosted another by Numbers & Letters, a Brooklyn-based band who were doing a quick tour of Scotland. Both gigs were great fun, and gave me the impetus I needed to start playing house concerts myself. I played my first in Westerton, in the West End of Glasgow, in November and it was one of my favourite gigs I’ve ever played. The simplicity and intimacy of playing to a small audience in someone’s front room seems to perfectly suit my music when I play live.

In the new year I’ll be playing two more house concerts: one in the south side of Glasgow and one in Inverness… and if you like the idea of me coming to play in your living-room, then please get in touch! (at andrew at calamateur dot com)

I also completed a couple of remixes for Iain Morrison this year. I’ve done a lot of work with him in the past and it was great to have another opportunity to play around with his tunes. Here are the two remixes I did for he and Daibhidh Martin, as part of their gorgeous Haunted Bird project:

Iain Morrison & Daibhidh Martin – The Sky Throws You (Calamateur remix) by calamateur

Iain Morrison & Daibhidh Martin – Drops of Grace (Calamateur mix) by calamateur
Remixes

Both remixes were released as B-sides of the single Iain & Daibhidh released in June, ‘The Sky Throws You’, featuring Anais Mitchell. You can buy it here.

And that it’s I think. A good year, all in all

So, if you bought, downloaded, listened to, recommended, sang along with, danced to, (etc etc) my music this year then…. THANK YOU!

And here’s to 2012, which will hopefully hold some more big life-changes (but not too big, thanks very much), new ventures and some more nerve-wracking (but exciting) challenges!

Sometimes I make noisy, experimental music, as is evident on my new album, ’The Quiet in the Land‘, which you can listen to / buy / share here:

And sometimes I make quiet, acoustic music, which is the kind of stuff you’ll hear me play if you come and see me at a house concert. Have a listen here:

And find out more about me here…

Come find me on last.fm here and here.

What have you been listening to?

degrading into a party, and nothing respectable by unexpectedbowtie

I’m looking forward to hearing what he does with the sounds I gave him. Here’s a wee selection of the gear I used to make the samples:

My ever-faithful Fender Jazz bass which I bought from Steve Lawson in 1993 or 1994 (we couldn’t remember) after seeing Eden Burning play a gig in Edinburgh:

The Orange bass amp that I ‘rescued’ from the tip in Inverness whilst recycling some cardboard boxes one wintry Saturday afternoon:

My Cole Clark acoustic guitar. I was doing the sound at a Garth Hewitt gig in Inverness a few years ago, and his daughter had just bought him a Cole Clark acoustic. I loved the sound of it so much I eventually went out and bought one myself:

A couple of my pedals. I suppose I shouldn’t really be putting my acoustic guitar through a bass distortion pedal, but if it sounds good…

My Marshall acoustic amp which I got on Gumtree not long after moving to Stirling.

Pro Tools 7.3. It’s up to 10 now but when I compare it to the Tascam cassette four-track I used to use, it’s like entering audio utopia.

Izotope’s awesome iDrum. I wrote most of the drum loops for my latest album using this plug-in as well.

A record by, what appears to be, some kind of Hare Krishna propaganda band. It didn’t actually sound quite as odd as I’d hoped it would, so a little time-stretching was in order:

And lastly, the broken-down hi-fi which I bought from my church youth group leader nearly 20 years ago. I’m sure he’d be glad to hear it’s still in use, helping me sample Gouranga-shouting oddballs:

I uploaded my first tune, the ambient version of ‘Retreat’ from my brand new album ‘The Quiet in the Land‘.

Enjoy! There’ll be more on the way soon…

Latest tracks by calamateur

I don’t want to con or mislead anyone who likes my nice-acoustic-indie schtick into buying something they won’t like. So if you’re not sure, please have a watch and a listen to this wee video (and then please keep reading):

The bad news is that if you don’t like what you hear in that video, you won’t like my new album. The good news is that if you do like what you hear, you (probably) will like my new album. Simples.

Oh, and there’s a little bit of swearing on there too, so if that’s not your thing – please steer clear.

So, thank you for reading this lengthy pre-amble. You can find my new album here:

It’s priced using the ‘Name Your Price’ / ‘Pay What You Think it’s Worth’ payment system. Which is not to say it’s free (although it can be if you’re skint), just that it’s up to you how much you pay. There’s 52 minutes of music there (including 4 hidden tracks), individual artwork for each track and a gorgeous 13-page pdf booklet (designed by Al at www.dufi-art.com).

And if you pay over £5, I’ll send you a link to an exclusive 60-minute ambient album plus an additional pdf booklet of alternative artwork.

I hope you like the new album. If you don’t, please don’t worry – there’ll be more nice-acoustic-indie stuff coming along soon

It’s called ‘The Quiet in the Land’.

Here’s the gorgeous front cover artwork (designed by Al)

I finished this album a few months ago but I’ve been putting off releasing it. It’s funny, it doesn’t matter how long I do this music lark, I still get fearful about letting other people hear the noise that I’ve made. And in this case there is quite a lot of noise, which is perhaps why I’m feeling a bit reticent.

When I put out my last long-player ‘Each Dirty Letter‘ (which was, to my ears, my most accessible album to date) I had this to say:

“Look, I l know I’ve been doing this with little success for over 10 years, and have at times been unfocused and genre-hopped way too much, BUT when I do focus, and when I get the right people to help me out, this is the kind of music I’m capable of making. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I hope it’s the start of something new.”

Well, my new album genre-hops all over the place, sounds NOTHING like my last album and was predominantly written, played, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by me alone.

So much for not being unfocused then.

Most, if not all, of the music I’ve made has felt like something I’ve had to get out of my system, but this album feels even more like that than usual. It’s noisy, angry, experimental, at times poorly recorded and, all in all, pretty frickin’ dark.

And speaking of frickin’, there’s a few choice words on the album as well. So if that’s not your thing then please just avoid it altogether. Normal service will be resumed soon enough… probably.

‘The Quiet in the Land’ will be out on the 14th November 2011.

The A-side itself is just gorgeous. Entitled ‘The Sky Throws You’, it  features guest vocals from Anais Mitchell.

The second track is my remix of ‘The Sky Throws You’. I’ve transformed it from a beautiful little love song into a Blade Runner-esque electronica epic that could quite happily soundtrack a stalker’s… stalking. At least that’s the idea.

The third track is my remix of an unreleased track by Iain & Daibhidh. Again, this is a fairly disturbing and dark little number that starts off brooding and slowly becomes a rock anthem of stadium proportions… or something.

Boy, am I glad I don’t write my own press releases.

Anyway, I had a whole lot of fun working on them and they give a little indication of what my next album is going to sound like.

It’d be great if you could go buy the single.

Here’s some links:

iTunes
emusic
Amazon
Play

And here’s a video of Iain, Daibhidh and Anais performing the single live in Edinburgh just a couple of weeks ago: