Episode 1 - Threadwork: Animals

It feels like it has been a long time coming but I'm really pleased to release - or launch, as some like to say - the first proper episode of the podcast. Musically, it's been completed for a couple of months but it took me that long to get up the courage to record the voice-over. That was eventually completed in two stages, the stuff in the episode (tentative, cobbled together) and then, a couple of weeks later, the intro (less tentative, still room for improvement). But it's fun, yo. Seriously. This whole thing is like an unpaid part-time job but it's really enjoyable.

Anyway, I hope you dig it.  Catch you next time.

Cheers, 

R

https://www.acast.com/threadwork

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/threadwork/id1365731024?mt=2

Abstractions by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Had to share this because it's just ridiculously good. I'm a big fan of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and a couple of her tracks will be showing up in the podcast in due course but over the last few days she released Abstractions to kick off the touchtheplants label (if label is the right word). 

It's a 22 minute experimental electronic workout that I'm not going to undersell by slapping comparisons on. What I will say is that appeals to the same part of me that loves The Orb and early FSOL. You can stream and buy it on Bandcamp via the link below.

Electronic Series Vol 1 : Abstractions by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, released 22 March 2018 1. Abstractions Electronic Series is an annual offering, and each volume will consist of a musical recording, accompanied by a short episodic comic about two friends - a plant and a human being - having an existential conversation.

Coming together, glimpse behind the curtain

How do? A quick update on all things Threadwork.

This week myself and producer Bod spent some of our time doing a bit of mastering and overlaying some of my recorded vocals (as it were) over the already finalized music. What I mean by finalized music is that we've already pulled together the tracks, how they're mixed or overlaid for a few of the episodes already. And because the vocals bit is the less easy part, I'm recording those after the event. We'll work like this until it becomes more natural to do the two together.

I'm keen that when the podcast launches it's dependable - there will be an episode when there is supposed to be one.  At the moment it takes approximately 2-3 weeks per episode sans vox though there's concurrent activity on episodes. Having a backlog will allow us to have a store of episodes to release whilst new ones are being worked on.

I've started approaching potential guests too so let's see what happens there. More news when there is some.

That'll do for now. Here's a record I thought about the other day. I'd forgotten just how good it was.

Cheers - R

First post, what's it all about, details, Episode 0

OK, hello - how's it going? I hope you're well? I'm alright, thanks. Trying to get to grips with building the website and making things look half decent. It's a challenge when you don't really have an eye for this sort of activity and even when most of the tools are there for you I'm still struggling with my own brain saying, 'stop, stop, this is rubbish, you're a fool, you can't do this'. 

Brain enemy might be right but I'm doing it nonetheless. 

So, the podcast is nearly ready to go. We're about halfway through the month of March at the time of writing and I'm aiming to have Episode 0 out in the next couple of weeks. Episode 0 serves a couple of purposes. Firstly, it's a standalone explanation of what the podcast is all about and will be about 4 minutes long once I've cut the audio down but also it's used to create a sort of template for future episodes. As far as I can tell you create all the details, descriptions, tags, spiel and whathaveyou about the podcast and then you just add future episodes from there. Essentially, Episode 0 allows me to get that groundwork laid.

The heavy-lifting on the first couple of episodes proper is more or less complete and I think I'll aim for a fortnightly release schedule. That seems like a cheque I'm able to cash as opposed to a weekly schedule, at least for now. 

So, what is the Threadwork Podcast all about? Essentially, it's an attempt to work out what it is that links all the music I like together. What's the thread that runs through it all? I have theories as I've been thinking about this for a while but as I'm not a scholar of music or have any technical knowledge regarding the structure of music it's pretty ill-defined - no more than a crude cave painting as opposed to fine art. 

Of course, Threadwork also doubles up as a way to just play music and share songs, tracks and other audio that I love, which has always been a supremely fun thing to do. I've DJ'd on and off (mostly off in recent times) for 20+ years and the thrill of discovering and subsequent joy of sharing music has never diminished. And with the medium of podcasts being more or less barrier free it seemed like the way to go. 

I'll have guests too, sharing their stories and music and that's a thing I'm very excited about. 

A word to the images you can currently see on the site. These are just works in progress at the moment and will be updated in due course. There are a couple of things in the pipeline that I'm really excited about - one I can directly influence and I need to pull my finger out on, the other I have to wait patiently for. 

Anyway, as a first post this'll about do it. All that's left to share is the music that I'm planning to use as the bed for the intros to each episode. It's a track I've been a fan of ever since I first heard it on X-Press II's Late Night Sesssions II and it's always stuck with me. I think it'll work nicely.

Talk soon - R.