In
the early 80's, when I was a drummer, I was asked to join a musical theatre
group who were touring a production called 'Thursday's Child'. It was
explained to me that Thursday's Child was not a story in the conventional
sense, but a journey of discovery. It had a beginning, a middle and an
end, not in time, but in thought. To be honest, as the young and slightly
wayward man I was at the time that all sounded like arty farty nonsense,
but once I had heard a recording of the work the more I thought about
it the more it made sense. Andabrek is the same. Just like Thursday's
Child it has a beginning, a middle and an end, but the story does not
represent a chronological series of events, but a thought process. I have
already been asked if I will be releasing a single from the album and
I'm not keen, but if it helps to promote the album itself then maybe it's
the right thing to do. I'm not keen on the album being available as individual
mp3 downloads either. It seems unlikely to me that an author of a novel
would sell their work a chapter at a time and I don't see why this album
is any different. In that light, Andabrek is an anachronism. It is being
released into a pick'n'mix world where music is almost exclusively listened
to a track at a time; download a bit of this, a bit of that, and then
press the 'random' button. Andabrek resides on that shelf in the seventies
record shop labelled 'Concept Albums' until such time as it is eagerly
plucked from it's temporary resting place and is cherished on the bus
ride home where it is lovingly unwrapped and placed delicately in the
stereo's cd tray as the sleeve notes are poured over by the headphone
adorned listener as they sit back with a glass of their favourite tipple
ready to totally immerse themselves into whatever new world awaits them.
The recording
I'm
a keyboard player by trade, an ex-drummer, and a frustrated guitarist
- in fact I can't really play the guitar at all but I can thrash out some
power chords when needs be. I wanted the album to be so much a work of
mine that I had to do as much as possible. I drafted in some great musicians
to cover the things I just couldn't do, but the vast majority of the album
is played by me using electronic piano, synthesisers and samplers, and
my trusty old Peavey electric guitar which I bought because it was blue
and it matched the décor in the studio. At the time of the recording
I was running a studio just outside of Exeter and I opted to engineer
the whole process myself. Whilst this was a brilliant decision from a
control point of view, it was a practical nightmare. For every vocal take
I would have to cue up, hit record, close the outer door, close the inner
door, get to the microphone, put on the cans, get ready, perform, take
off the cans, get back to the doors, open them both, and hit stop. It
was a tedious and frustrating process. For the technically minded, the
album was recorded using MIDI hooked up using a MOTU interface to an Apple
G4. The idea of this was so that when it came to mixing, I could tweak
the sounds I was using. As it turned out there was an upside and a downside
to this decision. The upside was that by the time I came to mix (seven
years later) I had a much better Hammond sound than I had at the time
of recording. The downside was that I had to reassemble all that original
equipment in order to be able to do the mix. Luckily, seven years later,
I plugged everything in, turned it on, and it just worked. I can still
remember a euphoric feeling of disbelief as I hit the play button for
the first time. That might seem obvious, but using a PC every day as I
do now, it's not a concept I am used to anymore.
The songs
The
theme of the album is already apparent from the cover, the influence of
Howard Jones' Human's Lib, and the links with Patrick McGoohan's TV series
'The Prisoner'. There is much to discover, and I am sure that each person
that listens will discover something different in the album and in themselves.
I don't want to give away more than that because the joy of the album
is in the discovery itself. Every line of every song has been agonised
over, so that even after many listens there is hopefully something new
to hear. It can be a self-fulfilling process; if you change your view
of the world after listening to the album and then come back and listen
again, I'm sure you will discover something new.
I have been asked many times now in interviews where the idea for the
album came from and after giving the matter much thought I suppose the
very first trigger came when I was eleven. I was due to go on a school
trip to the Natural History Museum and as a treat we did not have to dress
in school uniform. On the morning of the trip as I descended the steps
of railway station I could hear the excited voices of my classmates echoing
up from the platform below. What I saw next almost made me laugh out loud;
every single boy was wearing a bright T-shirt and jeans. From a distance
they all looked exactly the same. We had all inadvertently swapped one
uniform for another. Looking back, what had started out as an opportunity
to express individuality had turned into an almost Pythonesque moment.
everybody is an up tempo, loud, big bright neon sign of a song.
I suppose if there were to be a single from the album then this would
be it as the song pretty much lays out the theme of what is to follow,
much like an overture. It poses the question "what could you be if
you'd only set yourself free?". secret agent follows and was
inspired by the journeys I used to take on the London Underground. The
original title for this song was 'play for today', which is pretty poor
and luckily this was accidentally remedied by Devon virtuoso guitarist
Arthur Cook when he heard the triangle part and exclaimed "sounds
like some sort of secret agent"! I am indebted to him for that; The
new title expresses the meaning of the song so much better than my original
one. I suppose that subconsiously that's why I wrote the triangle part
in the first place, and it took someone else to realise it. digital
destiny throws us firmly into the 80's in the style of Thomas Dolby
I am told. The reason for the difference in style is that the music is
supposed to reflect the content of the lyrics and therefore had to sound
as mechanised as possible. There is something fantastically nerdy hidden
in this arrangement - it's right in your face pretty much all the way
from beginning to end but I wonder how many people will get it. As a tantalising
clue, here's my favourite nerdy joke: There's only 10 types of people
who understand binary - those that do, and those that don't. Possibly
the biggest contrast of styles on the album occurs at the junction where
'digital destiny' ends and your work is done begins. This soulful
and heartfelt piano based ballad was written for my parents but much to
my eternal regret they both passed on without ever hearing it. As with
the previous song the arrangement is very much intended to reflect the
lyrical content and the instruments were carefully chosen to represent
the sounds (and the 'musical differences') of the house I grew up in.
The link to the main theme may not be so obvious and is perhaps a little
less direct, but none the less it is a very important part of the journey.
The perspective naturally shifts in see you tonight which is a
song written for my son when he was very young - just vocals and piano
in this poignant piece which has often been referred to as a lullaby.
For me, it is a reflection of the previous song. For him, it is reassurance.
The inspiration for the lyrics came from a song which was given to me
many years before. The original song had a totally different meaning but
some of the lines inspired this one and I retained a fair few of them
in this version. blackjack
is recorded as if live and many people have commented that on the strength
of this song I should write the next Bond theme! I don't know about that,
but I'm sure that many fellow musicians will be all too familiar with
the 'leading horses to water' feeling in the dying moments of the track.
The sound of this song is there to conjure up an image of cabaret and
has its origins in the infamous "last night of music at the White
Hart" gig, featuring myself and six other musicians, most of whom
had never met until that wonderful night. be there, the second
ballad, is the melancholic moment on the album, reminiscent of those early
hours of the mornings after the drunken euphoria of the night before.
I feel the need now to tell you that the line "when I fall to
the ground" has no connection to drink. The key to understanding
this song is to figure out who it is I'm talking to. It's not as obvious
as it might first appear. inside out is heralded by Westminsteresque
chimes and rides on a relentless rhythm hopefully reminding us all of
the incessant march of time. This is, if you like, the moment of revelation
in the story, and is in stark contrast to the song that precedes it. It
is a response to the question asked in 'Everybody'. 'Inside Out' was actually
the original title for the album until I met a man called Malcolm in a
pub who gave me the word 'andabrek'. I'm indebted to him too. twelve
bar blues is seemingly the most incongruous song on the album. I know
of one person who skips it every time they listen to the album because
she thinks it doesn't fit. However, you have to remember that this album
is a train of thought not a series of chronological events and the placement
of this song, at this point, serves the purpose that the song itself describes
- there is a rhetorical word for what this is, but for the life of me
I can't think what it is! My favourite line in this song is "don't
upset the status quo" as it is meant literally, but naturally there
is the association with the band of the same name who are of course famous
for their twelve-bars. There's
also a little irony in that the song is that it's not actually a twelve-bar.
angry man settles the album down again to it's more serious purpose.
There's a hint of Art of Noise in this regretful song. It's very personal
and it's the song from which I quote the chorus in the sleeve notes. It
was inspired by another moment at The White Hart, and Kevin Taylor - the
landlord at the time, has the dubious honour of being the real "angry
man". He really was angry and he really did bang his fist on the
table and shout at me and tell me just the same things my father did -
but not being my father it somehow hit home. He was angry because as he
saw it I was wasting away my talents drinking in his pub instead of getting
out there and doing something with my life. megamorphosis
is the penultimate track and strictly the last part of the story. It begins
very quietly, paying homage to the opening of Thursday's Child. It gently
builds until we are enveloped by the voice of the guardian, played to
perfection by none other than my childhood Dr Who, Tom Baker. This epic
track climactically bursts into an instrumental flurry of rhythm and almost
chaotic sound. It describes a wonderful moment - perhaps the best moment
- the moment when all is possible. The track ends to the sound of the
children of St John's School in Sidmouth performing a tribal dance before
the school bell heralds the end of the day and the children run outside
to play. Shortly after the release of the album I met with Mr Foster,
the head of music at the school, who supervised and conducted the children
at the recording, and it was a grave reminder of just how long this album
has been in production as we realised that by then, they would all have
grown up. After a respectful pause, the album concludes with a reprise
of angry man performed just on piano, very much in the style that
the song was originally written. It is an echoey, haunting sound, full
of memories for me of playing the grand piano in my school hall all those
years ago. It is a time to reflect on what has gone before. My favourite
part of the whole album is the very last note.
It's a quiet, almost unheard note.
It's a full stop. It says... "this is the end".
In
the early 80's, when I was a drummer, I was asked to join a musical theatre
group who were touring a production called 'Thursday's Child'. It was
explained to me that Thursday's Child was not a story in the conventional
sense, but a journey of discovery. It had a beginning, a middle and an
end, not in time, but in thought. To be honest, as the young and slightly
wayward man I was at the time that all sounded like arty farty nonsense,
but once I had heard a recording of the work the more I thought about
it the more it made sense. Andabrek is the same. Just like Thursday's
Child it has a beginning, a middle and an end, but the story does not
represent a chronological series of events, but a thought process. I have
already been asked if I will be releasing a single from the album and
I'm not keen, but if it helps to promote the album itself then maybe it's
the right thing to do. I'm not keen on the album being available as individual
mp3 downloads either. It seems unlikely to me that an author of a novel
would sell their work a chapter at a time and I don't see why this album
is any different. In that light, Andabrek is an anachronism. It is being
released into a pick'n'mix world where music is almost exclusively listened
to a track at a time; download a bit of this, a bit of that, and then
press the 'random' button. Andabrek resides on that shelf in the seventies
record shop labelled 'Concept Albums' until such time as it is eagerly
plucked from it's temporary resting place and is cherished on the bus
ride home where it is lovingly unwrapped and placed delicately in the
stereo's cd tray as the sleeve notes are poured over by the headphone
adorned listener as they sit back with a glass of their favourite tipple
ready to totally immerse themselves into whatever new world awaits them.
I'm
a keyboard player by trade, an ex-drummer, and a frustrated guitarist
- in fact I can't really play the guitar at all but I can thrash out some
power chords when needs be. I wanted the album to be so much a work of
mine that I had to do as much as possible. I drafted in some great musicians
to cover the things I just couldn't do, but the vast majority of the album
is played by me using electronic piano, synthesisers and samplers, and
my trusty old Peavey electric guitar which I bought because it was blue
and it matched the décor in the studio. At the time of the recording
I was running a studio just outside of Exeter and I opted to engineer
the whole process myself. Whilst this was a brilliant decision from a
control point of view, it was a practical nightmare. For every vocal take
I would have to cue up, hit record, close the outer door, close the inner
door, get to the microphone, put on the cans, get ready, perform, take
off the cans, get back to the doors, open them both, and hit stop. It
was a tedious and frustrating process. For the technically minded, the
album was recorded using MIDI hooked up using a MOTU interface to an Apple
G4. The idea of this was so that when it came to mixing, I could tweak
the sounds I was using. As it turned out there was an upside and a downside
to this decision. The upside was that by the time I came to mix (seven
years later) I had a much better Hammond sound than I had at the time
of recording. The downside was that I had to reassemble all that original
equipment in order to be able to do the mix. Luckily, seven years later,
I plugged everything in, turned it on, and it just worked. I can still
remember a euphoric feeling of disbelief as I hit the play button for
the first time. That might seem obvious, but using a PC every day as I
do now, it's not a concept I am used to anymore.
The
theme of the album is already apparent from the cover, the influence of
Howard Jones' Human's Lib, and the links with Patrick McGoohan's TV series
'The Prisoner'. There is much to discover, and I am sure that each person
that listens will discover something different in the album and in themselves.
I don't want to give away more than that because the joy of the album
is in the discovery itself. Every line of every song has been agonised
over, so that even after many listens there is hopefully something new
to hear. It can be a self-fulfilling process; if you change your view
of the world after listening to the album and then come back and listen
again, I'm sure you will discover something new. 
The
original title for this song was 'play for today', which is pretty poor
and luckily this was accidentally remedied by Devon virtuoso guitarist
Arthur Cook when he heard the triangle part and exclaimed "sounds
like some sort of secret agent"! I am indebted to him for that; The
new title expresses the meaning of the song so much better than my original
one. I suppose that subconsiously that's why I wrote the triangle part
in the first place, and it took someone else to realise it. digital
destiny throws us firmly into the 80's in the style of Thomas Dolby
I am told. The reason for the difference in style is that the music is
supposed to reflect the content of the lyrics and therefore had to sound
as mechanised as possible. There is something fantastically nerdy hidden
in this arrangement - it's right in your face pretty much all the way
from beginning to end but I wonder how many people will get it. As a tantalising
clue, here's my favourite nerdy joke: There's only 10 types of people
who understand binary - those that do, and those that don't. Possibly
the biggest contrast of styles on the album occurs at the junction where
'digital destiny' ends and your work is done begins. This soulful
and heartfelt piano based ballad was written for my parents but much to
my eternal regret they both passed on without ever hearing it. As with
the previous song the arrangement is very much intended to reflect the
lyrical content and the instruments were carefully chosen to represent
the sounds (and the 'musical differences') of the house I grew up in.
The link to the main theme may not be so obvious and is perhaps a little
less direct, but none the less it is a very important part of the journey.
The perspective naturally shifts in see you tonight which is a
song written for my son when he was very young - just vocals and piano
in this poignant piece which has often been referred to as a lullaby.
For me, it is a reflection of the previous song. For him, it is reassurance.
The inspiration for the lyrics came from a song which was given to me
many years before. The original song had a totally different meaning but
some of the lines inspired this one and I retained a fair few of them
in this version. blackjack
is recorded as if live and many people have commented that on the strength
of this song I should write the next Bond theme! I don't know about that,
but I'm sure that many fellow musicians will be all too familiar with
the 'leading horses to water' feeling in the dying moments of the track.
The sound of this song is there to conjure up an image of cabaret and
has its origins in the infamous "last night of music at the White
Hart" gig, featuring myself and six other musicians, most of whom
had never met until that wonderful night. be there, the second
ballad, is the melancholic moment on the album, reminiscent of those early
hours of the mornings after the drunken euphoria of the night before.
I feel the need now to tell you that the line "when I fall to
the ground" has no connection to drink. The key to understanding
this song is to figure out who it is I'm talking to. It's not as obvious
as it might first appear. inside out is heralded by Westminsteresque
chimes and rides on a relentless rhythm hopefully reminding us all of
the incessant march of time. This is, if you like, the moment of revelation
in the story, and is in stark contrast to the song that precedes it. It
is a response to the question asked in 'Everybody'. 'Inside Out' was actually
the original title for the album until I met a man called Malcolm in a
pub who gave me the word 'andabrek'. I'm indebted to him too. twelve
bar blues is seemingly the most incongruous song on the album. I know
of one person who skips it every time they listen to the album because
she thinks it doesn't fit. However, you have to remember that this album
is a train of thought not a series of chronological events and the placement
of this song, at this point, serves the purpose that the song itself describes
- there is a rhetorical word for what this is, but for the life of me
I can't think what it is! My favourite line in this song is "don't
upset the status quo" as it is meant literally, but naturally there
is the association with the band of the same name who are of course famous
for their twelve-bars. There's
also a little irony in that the song is that it's not actually a twelve-bar.
angry man settles the album down again to it's more serious purpose.
There's a hint of Art of Noise in this regretful song. It's very personal
and it's the song from which I quote the chorus in the sleeve notes. It
was inspired by another moment at The White Hart, and Kevin Taylor - the
landlord at the time, has the dubious honour of being the real "angry
man". He really was angry and he really did bang his fist on the
table and shout at me and tell me just the same things my father did -
but not being my father it somehow hit home. He was angry because as he
saw it I was wasting away my talents drinking in his pub instead of getting
out there and doing something with my life. 
megamorphosis
is the penultimate track and strictly the last part of the story. It begins
very quietly, paying homage to the opening of Thursday's Child. It gently
builds until we are enveloped by the voice of the guardian, played to
perfection by none other than my childhood Dr Who, Tom Baker. This epic
track climactically bursts into an instrumental flurry of rhythm and almost
chaotic sound. It describes a wonderful moment - perhaps the best moment
- the moment when all is possible. The track ends to the sound of the
children of St John's School in Sidmouth performing a tribal dance before
the school bell heralds the end of the day and the children run outside
to play. Shortly after the release of the album I met with Mr Foster,
the head of music at the school, who supervised and conducted the children
at the recording, and it was a grave reminder of just how long this album
has been in production as we realised that by then, they would all have
grown up. After a respectful pause, the album concludes with a reprise
of angry man performed just on piano, very much in the style that
the song was originally written. It is an echoey, haunting sound, full
of memories for me of playing the grand piano in my school hall all those
years ago. It is a time to reflect on what has gone before. My favourite
part of the whole album is the very last note. 