Piano tapes II ("Somewhere Underwater")

Somewhere Underwater by Joseph Coward

Piano tapes (small vox)

O Genesis Recordings

The O Genesis website is online, click here to see the upcoming releases; you can now pre-order my single as well as the new single from the brilliant Electricity In Our Homes.

As you'll see, it's a double A-side (AA) called "Jesus Christ/Worry Wart". The record's available on limited edition 7" and as a download, so pre-order it now.

1234 after party

Information for the 1234 Festival after party is now online.

DJ sets from Hatcham Social, Tim Burgess and ROPE residents; live sets from Brown Brogues, The Revolutionary Spirit and Replicas. And me!

For more details go to the Facebook event. Stage times to follow.

Horrors & Toy

I went to York Hall in Bethnal Green last week to see the Horrors. They were brilliant, though whoever was in charge of sound tech should be strung up. The support group Toy were great, listen to them. There.

Re-amped Pumpkin drones

Download The Ghost at the Feast

My self-released EP, The Ghost At The Feast (JCR oo2) is now available to download, complete with artwork (pictured) from here. Enjoy.

I Remember Nothing

I've been invited to play at an event called 'I Remember Nothing' (named for the Joy Division song) at The Drop in Stoke Newington, North-East London. It's a nice venue in a nice area.

The event is being run by two young ladies who comprise a band called Replicas - they're on the bill too. They'll soon be recording with Tim and Jim at Big Mushroom to release a single with O Genesis, which is quite exciting. New label mates!

Replicas' music is on their MySpace but if you find the newest version of the player incredibly tedious (who doesn't?), their tracks are also available to stream on SoundCloud. I like their music, it reminds me of the Knife and a bit of Eno. Have a listen to them, and listen out for announcements of the single release.

See you on the 23rd.

The Ghost at the Feast

After a seemingly endless period of languishing creatively, I finally pulled myself together and spent today setting up a small recording booth, looping and overdubbing cello and guitar takes, with cassettes, in a garage. In a house. In my home town, Brentwood.

I suppose I've been extra keen to record independently recently, at least since I realised that the the vast majority of the songs that have been stacking up over the past 12 months will probably never be heard, unless I release them by myself, free of charge.

And that's what I plan to do. The Ghost At The Feast is only a small collection, but it's the first instalment of what I hope will be a long list of home recorded lo-fi EPs and possibly LPs.

I'll be using the JCR imprint that released Animal Sweethearts last year, but after some consideration I will probably only release these online as opposed to putting out a tape or CD. However, I won't just be uploading them onto SoundCloud, track by track, for people to pick from. Each new JCR release will be announced on this blog and you'll be able to download them in full from a filesharing site for a limited time only. After the time limit is reached on the filesharing site, you'll be able to email me and I'll be happy to send you the full record, still free of charge.

This seems like a good idea to me. Maybe I'll get to record some of the JCR songs with O Genesis, who knows? I like the idea of having lots of recorded versions of one song out in the world, I have so many different versions of all my songs on tape that it'd be nice if that were reflected in my releases.

The full EP will be available from next week; keep checking back for updates. Let me know what you think of the preview, available for streaming, below.

Raincoat (old sample) by Joseph Coward

1968

This is by far my favourite song by S.C.U.M, called "Summon The Sound"; I've been waiting to hear a studio version of this for three years, and I'm pleased to discover that they've finally got around to recording it.

(God, it's June already. Time's passing us all by. I expect I'll be dead soon.)

I first heard about S.C.U.M in '07/'08, I think they had about an inch of column space in the NME next to Electricity In Our Homes and I rushed to write about them on the music blog that I wrote at the time called Construction House (you can read the little bit I originally wrote here, it's quite amusing). I also used to print a fanzine of the same name that I distributed at shows, and the record shop on Berwick St in London used to give them out for me as well. If memory serves me correctly, I actually conducted quite an interesting interview with Tom, the lead singer of S.C.U.M, in issue #4. I don't have any copies of this left, but I assure you it was very good.

Anyway, they're on tour with the Kills now and I'm incredibly jealous of both their success and good looks. But do go to a show if you can make it, both groups are worthwhile.