A bit of a music update...

I'd decided in early Februrary that I'd put my music projects on hold for a while. The thought behind this is pretty grim: I'm nearing an age milestone in my life and feel like I still haven't got even the most basic parts figured out (more on that later here or on the German site). Music is still on hold for the most part, but I can't stay away completely completely. So, a little bit of a tally of where things are today:

Solo

The latest album, Funeral, was a pretty impromptu project. I'm toying with the idea of extending this to another trilogy--the theme is there, and the music may follow.

The Reset trilogy is two-thirds complete, of course. Reset and Revert are done and have been out for a year and a half and almost a year, respectively. Revise is one of those projects I'd specifically put on hold. The trilogy may no longer be a trilogy, but a loose series of music story experiments. Some day, I may post the (as yet unwritten, but existing) stories behind the two albums, but I mainly look at the Reset trilogy albums (calling it "trilogy" until I know if it turns into an ongoing set) as my musical R&D works that just so happen to look and feel like concept albums. Of course, R&D work means that each of these entries to the series should cover new (for me) musical ground--Reset covers my entrance into the ambient genre, while Revert details my first steps in the ambient industrial genre. What will Revise bring? I'm pretty certain it'll be electro pop.

No Acronym

The fledgling project spearheaded by Owen Keenan and myself, but designed to be an open forum for creativity, is still fledgling. Our remix of Judy Dyble's song "Grey October Day" (a great duet with Tim Bowness) is still on the shelves--as is the entire single/remix project after suffering from a number of delays caused by bouts of illness in England late last year--but may see the light of day some time this year. Aside from that, we were toying around with a number of compositional drafts, including "Portents" (with Simon McCabe on saxophone) and "Massacre of the Innocents" (which, of course, would require some rights clearing if we're to stick with the current lyrics).

We'll see where things go--working without a deadline means we can't feel bad about delays. Initially, we wanted to spend a month each this year dedicated to a single composition. My on-holdness kind of killed that idea, but we're free to pick things up again whenever.

Bernhard Wöstheinrich + Nadim Haque

This is the music I just can't keep away from. After we'd played our first concert in early December 2010, the thought of making this a release came to mind pretty quickly. It took some time for both of us to get used to the music here: for the longest time, I lamented on the lack of "Bibbiboo" moments in my musical input, while Bernhard wasn't too keen on the slightly detuned, distorted instruments that were a result of my running the MIDI clock too slowly for his taste. Now that we've both seen the light about this recording, we're pretty keen on getting its release lined up. The mix is done, a little bit of post-production work remains (detailed in this post specifically about the BW+NH concert), but then it's off to listeners everywhere. It's an interesting mix of ambient music, electronic stylings, classical sounds and noise; a heavy science fiction theme runs through the whole thing, and there's mystery abound.

Bernhard's had an interesting idea about how to move on, musically, from this live show. It involves a two-fold approach that melds improvisation with composition and may be as classical or as avant-garde as we wish. Looking forward to getting the first music on this (but first, other work needs to get done).