Hello all,

It’s been a busy year and, as usual, I’ve fallen a bit behind announcing things. Aside from various irr. projects and the audio & video collaborations with my wife Tatyana (more news on those topics soon), I’ve been contributing to some other artist’s projects so I’ll take a moment to mention those.

There is a new Thomas Carnacki album out, which is actually a threefold project: a two-album set and a separate single album released on vinyl, CD and digital download. The primary album, ‘Cadavre Isolé’, was constructed using an Exquisite Corpse approach between three of the TC personnel: Gregory Scharpen, Cheryl Leonard and Sheila Bosco. A companion album was then made by four TC members (adding Gregory Hagan) using these results to create their own compositions.

A third collection released separately, ‘Recontre Fortuite’, was the result of giving all these sources to outside remixers and inviting them to use it as raw material to create their own interpretations. Andrew Liles, R K Faulhaber, Matmos each contributed a track, and irr. contributed two (ha! take that Liles!). Mastering on all three albums was done by my own slinky self.

Both titles begin shipping in early November.

Also freshly minted is a new CD release of ‘Blue Bottle In A Jam Jar’ by Diana Rogerson, for which I provided audio and mixing contributions on half of the tracks, mastering for the whole shebang, and also original drawings for the packaging. This album was released on Bandcamp back in October 2021, but I successfully delayed the physical release until now by taking too long to draw a new cover & new disc art.

The CD is now available from Nihilist Recordings in the United States, but a European edition is being prepared by Fourth Dimension Records — although I don’t have a release date for the Fourth Dimension version. The same artwork was provided to both labels, but each are doing their own specific layout.

I’ve received 8 copies of the Nihilist version to offer for sale, so I’m putting together a ‘special mini art edition’ of my own that will also include a CDR with new extensive reworkings of two of the tracks to which I did not contribute on the album: ‘Lip Service’ and ‘Blue Bottle’. Each copy will also include a CD-sized original fly portrait drawn in the same style as the cover art. The tracks & graphics are finished, but it will take a while longer to finish the original drawings. I’ll made a small edition of the CDR available separately in case more than 8 of you out there are interested, and eventually it’ll probably be posted on Bandcamp. More news on this will be posted as progress is made.

The three original art pieces made for the album will be listed for sale at the same time as the mini art edition.

Another graphic contribution I made recently was to the Nihilist Recordings vinyl issue of ‘Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish’, a collaborative album between Steven Stapleton and Tony Wakeford originally released in 1992. A double CD reissue of this album was released in 2009, for which I did the graphic layout, added some new digital collage artwork & embellishment, and also contributed a remix track to the bonus disc. For this new vinyl edition, several of my digital pieces from the 2009 reissue have been re-used, and a brand new digital collage (see top image in this post) has been created for the back cover, incorporating Steve’s brilliant sea slug collage portrait from the original album.

I think I’ll only have one copy of this to sell, so I’m doing yet another ‘mini art edition’, which will include a CDR with ‘Unselfish’, a brand new 30-minute reworking of all the Shellfish source material (including some of Steve’s unused mixes for the album), and a newly scrubbed, somewhat modified and extended version of ‘The Frightened City [Nameless Dread Mix]’ track that I created for the reissue bonus disc back in 2009. I’d expected to be doing a quick clean-up on this latter track — but I forgot how long ago I made it! The program I used way back then isn’t compatible with current operating systems, so I can’t even open the multitracks anymore; therefore, a more involved approach had to be used to make things work. Just as well, as the original mix had some glaring technical shortcomings.

This second ‘mini art edition’ will also include a piece of original art (this one LP-sized). As with the bonus CDR I made for Diana’s album, I’ll make a limited number of the Selfish Shellfish bonus CDR available separately in case any of you are interested but have already bought the vinyl. And also because making a single-copy edition of it seems like a dickish thing to do. Eventually posting to Bandcamp will also probably happen sooner or later. Tracks & graphics for the CDR are finished, but the original art piece still needs to be done.

That’s all for now; more updates on these things soon.

all the best

–msw