Time for the first full update of 2012..

There’s a few things to address in this post, but first off, following its ‘release’ in December, I’ve now added the latest album, Hesitance, to this site. It’s now available to download from the discography section, and you can get there by clicking this handy link right here. Or if you want, you can download the album, for free, by right-clicking and saving the album cover or this link. There’s a few details about the album in the previous post on this site, so you can check that out if you want a bit more info on the album and its production.

So there’s a few things I have in the pipeline for the upcoming weeks and months. Firstly, you may or may not have noticed the new design of this site. I like it when bands reimagine their website with every new release, and I’d love to do the same, but lack of time and creativity usually gets in the way and I tend to get very lazy with the webpage layout. But I found a bit of time to tinker with the layout. The old black and red design was growing old to me and I want something a little more bright, although that’s ‘bright’ in purely relative terms..

In terms of new music, there’s currently a demo of an old song streaming on the Facebook Page for Boys From County Hell, which is a short film about vampires in rural Ireland by a good friend of mine; Chris Baugh. The song is called When I’m Dead and I wrote it after reading an early draft of the film script a few years ago now. The song was never finished how I wanted it and the version that’s available was only really intended as a present to my friend Chris. The plan at the miniute is to complete the song and put it out in conjunction with the final film, maybe in the springtime. Of course it depends on how much people like the demo version. I might just have to leave it as it is..  You can check it out and have a listen here.

The whole ‘song-for-horror-movie’ thing is not that far removed from what I’m planning as my next main project for this year. After the slog of 2011 and really struggling with the last album in pretty much all aspects of its production, it feels time for a bit of a change. I’m so used to working in a certain way for so long, repeating the same routines for creating and producing music, that I feel a bit jaded by it. It becomes a bit too comfortable to fall back on the usual practices and proceedures and I’m thinking about snapping out of that cycle and challenging myself a little bit. So I still hope to stick to my self-imposed deadline of an album every year, but I have a different type of album in mind this time. I shouldnt commit anything more to type, as no doubt I will fail miserably in my endeavours, much like the instrumental album I’ve been meaning to finish for nearly 5 years now, but it will definitely be more story based in its approach, and taking inspiration from places I don’t usually seek it.

In the meantime I am planning to put out a short 3-song ep of covers that I recorded around the Christmas holidays. I spent 2 full weeks at home back in Ireland this year, and planned to spend a sizable chunk of that time playing music with my youngest brother Niall like we used to back in the day. We ended up playing a lot, but the whole recording thing seemed too much like hardwork for the most part. In the end, I had one day left at home and we decided to see what we could get done in the space of an afternoon. So there’s currently a scrappily recorded framework of two songs on my laptop that we recorded in the space of an afternoon/evening. The idea was to do something much more collaborative than I usually do, and we split the playing and performing mostly down the middle, both singing vocals, both playing drums, guitars etc. I need to now go and mix them and add a few bits here and there, which may be tricky as I think the piano is possibly out of tune.. On top of that, there’s another simple little cover tune that I’m waiting to get additional vocals on from Ghostlight’s very own Al White. So all in all, hopefully those 3 songs will be available sometime in late February.

Then of course there’s the issue of live shows. With a lot of downtime from Ghostlight proceedings the last few months, the itch to get back on a stage is niggling me consistently and it may be time to get my acoustic guitar restrung and hit a few pokey clubs around dingy London backstreets to sit on a stool in the corner and play these misersable songs to strangers. My preference for playing with a full band is even further away in coming to fruition so I may have to bite the bullet and go solo. I’m a world champion procrastinator though, so any words, emails, tweets, comments or text messages of ‘boot-up-the-arse’ encouragement would be very welcome.

Any developments on any front will be reported here, and in the mean time, you’ll get occasional musings from me on the Tumblr page, plentiful moaning on my Twitter page, and the occasional tasty morsel on my Facebook page. Check back soon for more updates, oh, and if you haven’t already, go download my new album, it’s free! And you may find the odd bar of music in it that you might actually quite like. Stranger things have happened..

Thanks for reading,

Thomas

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