Post by bobswipe on Mar 15, 2013 4:59:49 GMT -5
Hello fellow experimental music forumers,
I'm Robert Swipe and I've been making music since I was a wee nipper and distributing stuff on the internet since about 2006. It's really nice to see a space like this where people whose work is a little off the beaten track can share music, advice and support. I'm really looking forward to checking out the boards and hearing what everyone's been up to. My own stuff veers from classic pop to wierdly experimental, so hopefully at least some of it might appeal to forum members here.
A brief 'career' synopsis. First collection of songs that I made available was called 'Madcap in the attic' - an odd mix of Americana, ambient pop and general wierdness with the usual quota of egregious Bowie-isms. I put that up on iTunes but due to lack of popular demand decided that posterity was better served by putting it up for free, so you'll find that at the link below if you're interested. I revisited these songs last year and put a lot of the techie stuff mI've picked up over the last 5 or 6 years to use and came up with a jazzier version that you can get again via iTunes. But the original cruddily put together originals may have a certain charm that perhaps people here are more receptive to. Anyway, I guess the production brief was somewhere along the lines of Ram as it might have been produced by Joe Meek.
'Bedroom Burlesque' was a more thematic work with more focussed writing. Great cover too, with me in the almost nip. Alongside more conventional song structures such as 'Joining the cyber circus' ('She's leaving home' rewritten by Neil Finn'), 'Boytron' (Suede revamping 'Hey Jude' and Motown stomper 'Veil and Jimmy Choos' are oddities such as the ukulele driven 'Jailbirds' and the frosty ambience of 'Champagne shag'. I had another go at this stuff last year too, but still haven't finished the revamped version - maybe some day?
'Glam!!' is probably the magnum opus of the more obvious pop albums. Does pretty much what it says on the tin only with even more egregious Bowie-isms - but songs like 'The day before the aliens came' (War of the worlds as it might have sounded if Jeff Wayne had had 3 minutes forty seconds of studio time in which to record and mix it) and the majestic closer, 'Charlie George' hint at stranger stuff to follow. It probably also needs a good remix/remaster, but it's probably the one I'd point people to first if I wanted them to think I was any good at what I do.
Things get much stranger from then on. 'Robot' is an odd, bitty, unfocussed sci-fi/urban hybrid featuring several tracks with vocals by an actual robot (Honor Garter - she was made in Japan, apparently) I probably should have spent a bit more time on it, but there are some interesting ideas there if you can see beyond the ineptitude. This was followed by a completely ambient set called 'St. Enodoc' (geddit??) which was inspired by the atmosphere and scenery of the Camel Estuary. The current piece is a suitably schizoid offering. It's called 'Faun' and the first side - poppy, accessible narrative songs based on my own experiences of being a teenager back in the late 70s/early 80s with appropriately period musical backdrops - is already posted up on my blog. The second side will be a different beast altogether - a suite loosely based around the 'Rite of Spring' and 'Prelude of a faun in the afternoon' that will mix elements of urban, Brechtian songspiele, Schoenbergian chords and jazz. Think 'A teenage opera' as recast by Alban Berg with Mark E. Smith on vocals. I'm very excited about the way these pieces are developing, so hopefully I'll have some sections to post up soon.
OK, thanks for taking the time to read this guff. If you'd like to hear the work, most of it can be found here:
http://swipecore.blogspot.com
If any of the links don't work or you can't see links for the tracks you want to hear, let me know and I'll repost them on the Internet Archive site for you.
Best of luck to all of you in your various musical experiments.
L.U.V. on y'all
xxx
Bob
I'm Robert Swipe and I've been making music since I was a wee nipper and distributing stuff on the internet since about 2006. It's really nice to see a space like this where people whose work is a little off the beaten track can share music, advice and support. I'm really looking forward to checking out the boards and hearing what everyone's been up to. My own stuff veers from classic pop to wierdly experimental, so hopefully at least some of it might appeal to forum members here.
A brief 'career' synopsis. First collection of songs that I made available was called 'Madcap in the attic' - an odd mix of Americana, ambient pop and general wierdness with the usual quota of egregious Bowie-isms. I put that up on iTunes but due to lack of popular demand decided that posterity was better served by putting it up for free, so you'll find that at the link below if you're interested. I revisited these songs last year and put a lot of the techie stuff mI've picked up over the last 5 or 6 years to use and came up with a jazzier version that you can get again via iTunes. But the original cruddily put together originals may have a certain charm that perhaps people here are more receptive to. Anyway, I guess the production brief was somewhere along the lines of Ram as it might have been produced by Joe Meek.
'Bedroom Burlesque' was a more thematic work with more focussed writing. Great cover too, with me in the almost nip. Alongside more conventional song structures such as 'Joining the cyber circus' ('She's leaving home' rewritten by Neil Finn'), 'Boytron' (Suede revamping 'Hey Jude' and Motown stomper 'Veil and Jimmy Choos' are oddities such as the ukulele driven 'Jailbirds' and the frosty ambience of 'Champagne shag'. I had another go at this stuff last year too, but still haven't finished the revamped version - maybe some day?
'Glam!!' is probably the magnum opus of the more obvious pop albums. Does pretty much what it says on the tin only with even more egregious Bowie-isms - but songs like 'The day before the aliens came' (War of the worlds as it might have sounded if Jeff Wayne had had 3 minutes forty seconds of studio time in which to record and mix it) and the majestic closer, 'Charlie George' hint at stranger stuff to follow. It probably also needs a good remix/remaster, but it's probably the one I'd point people to first if I wanted them to think I was any good at what I do.
Things get much stranger from then on. 'Robot' is an odd, bitty, unfocussed sci-fi/urban hybrid featuring several tracks with vocals by an actual robot (Honor Garter - she was made in Japan, apparently) I probably should have spent a bit more time on it, but there are some interesting ideas there if you can see beyond the ineptitude. This was followed by a completely ambient set called 'St. Enodoc' (geddit??) which was inspired by the atmosphere and scenery of the Camel Estuary. The current piece is a suitably schizoid offering. It's called 'Faun' and the first side - poppy, accessible narrative songs based on my own experiences of being a teenager back in the late 70s/early 80s with appropriately period musical backdrops - is already posted up on my blog. The second side will be a different beast altogether - a suite loosely based around the 'Rite of Spring' and 'Prelude of a faun in the afternoon' that will mix elements of urban, Brechtian songspiele, Schoenbergian chords and jazz. Think 'A teenage opera' as recast by Alban Berg with Mark E. Smith on vocals. I'm very excited about the way these pieces are developing, so hopefully I'll have some sections to post up soon.
OK, thanks for taking the time to read this guff. If you'd like to hear the work, most of it can be found here:
http://swipecore.blogspot.com
If any of the links don't work or you can't see links for the tracks you want to hear, let me know and I'll repost them on the Internet Archive site for you.
Best of luck to all of you in your various musical experiments.
L.U.V. on y'all
xxx
Bob