i haven't written here for a while as there hasn't really been much to update you on. i lost momentum with promoting the curfew bell, and i just generally feel that there isn't much chance of it amounting to much. i should be doing little shows around town.. but at this point i don't feel like i have the means or enthusiasm. i think i'll do another burst of sending it to college radio stations and some magazines, and then, well, maybe just start on some new project and just give copies of the bell to whoever wants them. i don't want to be bitter or disappointed... its a learning experience and i had a great time playing and making the thing. which of course is the fundamental reason i create anything.

anyways, i thought i'd post something from a while ago that i found rather charming. a radio station in Providence, RI, BSR 88.1 FM had a show called "Variations on a Theme" and one evening their theme was Phobias... an old song of my from post meltdown, "Serenade during Blackout" was played to represent the fear of the dark. The sweet thing is, the host of the show, (who i may have been vaguely aquainted with online?) said that i was a janitor and worked in a bakery, which i have no idea where she got that from! but now i am a janitor. so maybe she could tell the future.

here's the link for the particular show that night that you can listen to online,and there is some other good music on there such as sparklehorse and xiu xiu and the like

http://www.bsrlive.com/archives/playlist.php?p=1957

CocoRosie are coming to town in May, which i am rather excited about. So i was poking around at their website and came across a link to a documentary at youtube about them and others in the "freakfolk" scene; Devendra Banhart, Antony, etc.

"The Eternal Children" (directed by David Kleijwegt) a pretty strange and moving little film with some great performance clips. Although i find the music of each artist very different from each other, the common thread is that they have all somehow preserved the weird child in them and have unapologetically let that energy factor into all the things they make, and the people they've become.


anyways, if your a fan of those mentioned artists, its reccomended.

divided into six parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

hey, thanks to those who bought a copy of the album! or expressed interest! or blinked heavily! its currently out of stock at cdbaby.com but i sent them more copies a week ago so it should be back soon. (its back now)

(vancouver peeps; its now available at good ol' Zulu Records as well.)


probably no one reading this is in japan but i should also mention the album is available at duotone records in tokyo, the same label that put out my "Arithmetic with Tigers" EP. Furu, the fellow who runs it, is a great fellow and supports a lot of independent electronic-ish acts.

hmm..there was other stuff i wanted to talk about, but i'm exhausted right now and my memory isn't so good. thinking of seeing sparklehorse this week...should i? anyone want to come?

'The Curfew Bell' is now officially released, and can now be ordered from CD Baby where you can also listen to samples of each of the tracks.

For those who live in Vancouver, BC, its already available at Red Cat Records (4307 Main St.) so I'd encourage you to go there. Its a furry little record shop. I'll have it out at Zulu Records (1972 West 4th Ave) in a few days as well.



I really should have shared mp3s from the album earlier, but i've not been especially well organized with this all. But here!:

1 - Minus Numbers.mp3
which includes some cut up guitar from jams with my friend Jordan Dawe, camera clicks, and little voice samples of a younger Marina Buckler who is having some phone problems.

For The Hopscotch Kids of Duncan Drive.mp3
a tribute to a bunch of kids who would draw hopscotch patterns hundreds of squares long on duncan dr. in my old town. includes a weird guitar loops, an unusual meter, shaking dice, and some other things.

if you want to read more about the album you can do so at the goodnight streetlight website which would also be a good place to forward to friends and strangers who you think may be interested in the music i make.

thank you so much everyone who's been patient and supportive of this thing that i do. It means a lot to me, and I hope you like the album.

yours,

raoul.

happy new year my dear readers!

I'm listening to Joanna Newsom's "Ys" and thinking that it probably wins as my favorite album from 2006. so sweeping and bravely imagined. Really can't say enough good things about it. I know a lot of people have trouble with her voice, but its a lot more matured and less squeaky (though i do like the squeak occasionally) on the new record. Also, holds the best explanation of the difference between meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids.

Anyways, I don't have many people on my list at the moment...but i wanted to ask - what was your favourite new album/artist from last year? or anything that you are really excited about right now that you want to press on me. extra points for links/mp3s! thankyou

xo

So..... its December...and i'm almost done. i went through a lot of trouble with the packaging ideas. lots were formed and tried but fell through. i've got it now though. i don't have a scanner to show you the final version, but i'll do that when i go see my folks in a few days. its basically an updated and coloured version of that policecar/kite image...printed on transparent labels. front cover and a tracklisting/album info on the back. i'm happy with it. the last thing i have to do is make a little booklet... and i'm really only doing it because the cardboard covers come with a flap to put a booklet it, and it would be silly to not use it. Going with the police idea, i'm going to put together a mini-zine of stuff i wrote a while ago, which were basically short police 'crime beat' reports set in a fictional and slightly magical town called Blinksville. i'll post a few samples later.

the cd itself, is blue and has a white owl with red eyes on it. i have about 500 of them sitting under my bed.

So although i expect to be ready in a week... i don't think i'll have it ready for christmas presents...but probably something to welcome in the new year?
thanks for your patience kids.

xo

r

i've gone through a lot of cover art ideas over the course of making this album, none seemed to really work. there was this photograph of trees in foggy light, but that was too easy.. and then there was this multiple exposure construction that megan made, of a monster-like creature flying in a strange sky. still didn't seem to fit. but recently i drew a picture that possibly could be what i'll use.

i'm going to fill in lots of blue twilight-ish shades and maybe change it quite a bit, but here's a peek at the start of the idea

The Curfew Bell

01 - Mesmer
02 - Doubt And The Flying Machine
03 - For the Hopskotch Kids of Duncan St.
04 - Strike Anywhere Matches
05 - Ambien
06 - What Ghost Is This?
07 - Minus Numbers
08 - Sleep Comes Asking
09 - Snow Globe Movie Theatre
10 - Yesterday Was Slow
11 - Sweet Dreams Huck Finn
12 - Shelf Life

Saw The Books last night and it was a pretty wonderful and funny show. If they come to your town, go see them! Basically the setup was the two guys, one playing guitar and occasionally singing and the other playing some mean cello. There was electronics for percussion, odd little found sounds and voice samples mixed in and synched up seamlessly with weird video bits that they have collected. It kinda sounds very postmodern and arty but it was really charming, and they made a direct emotional connection with the audience in a way a lot of electronic-ish / multimedia acts fail to do. they ended with this really sweet cover of nick drake's 'cello song' and brought out their smoke-ring making device for an weird little encore-outro.

P:ano opened up for them; they were sweet. Music for sleepovers? music to knit by? since when did i start enjoying such pleasant music?

since i've recently got a job i decided to treat myself to purchasing an album, something i haven't done for a while. i picked up howe gelb's (of giant sand) sno' angel like you" an album he recorded with the help of a gospel choir. its kinda stripped down and the voices of the choir are really alive and brought forward, contrasting nicely with howe's dusty speak-singing. I was excited about the album because i've always wanted to make/hear something that incorporates gospel-like singing, but not necessarily in a religious context.. i guess i'm a sucker for a crowd of people singing together. i like that there is no central figure, the singers kinda becomes more like the audience, in a sense. anyways, i think if i ever make a more organic album with full-out singing, i'll get a bunch of friends together in a room with some good liquor and give it a go. there are some lovely voices resting in some of my friends.

late sunday evening my friend aaron picked me up and we drove to the abandoned schoolhouse to listen to my new album in his car. he's been working on mastering it for the last month, maticulously clearing up all the errors (why are you using the low-pass filter so much?) and making it more dynamic and resonant (don't be afraid to pan! etc.) i'm really grateful to have someone with his ears and musical knowhow to work on it...especially since he's doing it free. it probably would be thousands of dollars to get a professional to do it. in any case i plan to pay him back eventually, in some way or another, for it.

so listening to it was a strange experience, looking out over the dark fields, shadows of birds. it had been a while since i last heard any of it. i remember thinking 'what on god's good earth is this?' and 'i can't believe this is something that has come from me!' a couple times. i remember just slipping into uncontrollable laughter at some points. i'm happy with it, but i'm just unsure where its going to fit in. its just so different from anything else i've heard. so i can't be like, its good because its similar to this other thing that is also good, yknow?

some changes aaron made were very amazing and worked so well, but some kinda made me furrow my eyebrows. when i asked about them he was like 'no, no, thats the best part!' ha. so i'm thinking letting them stay. aaron-isms. i figure i can hand over some of the creative control for all the work he's done.

- r