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I post updates and new music every few days.
Reminder - the double disc 'The Complete Simple Folk Radio Recordings' is only available this month
Just to remind anyone interested in this that each physical edition of the monthly subscription releases is only available for the month I make it, so this 2 X CD version won’t be available in two weeks. The digital version will always be available to anyone signing up but as I make something new each month there will be something else in April.
'The Complete Simple Folk Radio Recordings' is 30 songs recorded between 2007 and 2013, including four tracks not broadcast and previously unavailable. It’s out as a digital download or the 2 X CD version - with a unique personalised cover and sent to you where ever you are. Sign up for my Patreon or Bandcamp subscriptions and it’s available there.
Each month I put together something like this (or usually make something completely new) as well as post single tracks, images and other things there. Massive thanks to everyone who subscribes - it means the world and keeps the enthusiasm levels for making new things nice and high.
'The Complete Simple Folk Radio Recordings' out 01.03.21
Thirty tracks recorded over three sessions between 2007 and 2013, including 4 previously unreleased, ‘The Complete Simple Folk Radio Recordings’ is out 01.03.21 through my Patreon or Bandcamp subscriptions.
€10 - digital edition
€15 - digital + 2 x CD-r edition hand typed by me and sent to you wherever you are
All subscriptions enable downloads of all 11 previous monthly releases and a bunch of single tracks, image sets and posts I make between them.
These were always nice things to work on and I am grateful for having had the chance to know Dillon and his Simple Folk Radio show back in Brighton. The show is currently on hiatus but there are plenty of wonderful sessions archived and available to listen to over on the website.
This set collects everything I recorded for them and runs like this:
2007
The Weeping Well (with The Diamond Family Archive)
The Good Lord (with The Diamond Family Archive)
Paper Birds (with The Diamond Family Archive)
Not Yet Gone (with The Diamond Family Archive)
Blackwater (with The Diamond Family Archive)
Tender And True
2010
Annabel
You Are Better Than This
St Mary
Song For Fee
Song For A Coalman
Tom
Winter
The Royal Canal
If You Can Hold It You Can Throw It
Portugal
Bad Things Happen
2013
The Royal Canal
You Are Better Than This
Deserter
Barbara Allen
Rearranging
When I Was Away
Make A Dead One Of It
Paper Birds
Dear Leise
A Fair Mile (previously unreleased)
Deserter (previously unreleased)
The Burning Of Two (previously unreleased)
Good And Gone (previously unreleased
'Schloss' EP this weekend
As well as making a monthly full release each month, I’ve been going through recordings and images and posting a few times a week to my Patreon.
This weekend I’m making a simple EP ‘Schloss’ also available to download there. Four songs recorded live in front of a tiny audience in various rooms of the Schloss Hünegg in Thun, Switzerland on the 7th of September 2019.
Subscription to Patreon starts at just €3 a month and everyone will be able to download this as well as lots of other things I’m finding and making these days.
I also have a subscription over on my Bandcamp and anything posted to Patreon goes there too. Massive thanks to everyone already into all this, means the world these days.
'Gostenhof' now available
The 11th in my series of monthly releases since the start of the lockdown is available now through my Patreon and Bandcamp subscriptions.
'Gostenhof' is a recording of an 8 song set played at the Gostner Hoftheater last February and is out now as a digital download and handmade CD edition to my Patreon and Bandcamp subscribers.
The track list for 'Gostenhof' runs like this:
It Don’t Stop The Bleeding
The Royal Canal
I Was In The North Before The Fall
Pure Black Coal
Lover O Lover
Winter (song by The Diamond Family Archive)
SUPER GOOD ADVICE
So Long Song
Here’s the first song of the night over on the Youtube:
‘Gostenhof’ is also available through my Bandcamp subscription, of course. Find details about that here:
New music through my Patreon and Bandcamp now
Just a short video with a couple of songs I released through my Patreon and Bandcamp subscriptions this month. The Patreon is new for me and allows me to upload single tracks very easily, as well as supporting Paypal payments for as little as €3 a month.
Please consider signing up and a massive thank you to everyone who’s already done so. You’re brilliant.
Nürnberg Recording expanded
A set of songs I recorded back in 2011 are available in an expanded set over on my Patreon and Bandcamp pages for everyone subscribing there.
I’ve found a few extra songs and made a new mix and now it runs like this:
Make A Dead One Of It
Cargo
I Know What I Make Isn’t Fine
The Burning Of Two
Suit Of Stones
You Have Painted A Cross On My Ceiling
Blood (early version)
Some Somehow Get Home
The Good Doesn’t Get Any Better
Patreon starts at €3 a month and it’s a direct way of supporting me and getting to hear the new music I make and am finding again.
It's my birthday and I now have a Patreon
I now have a Patreon page and I urge you to come and support me. From here on in I’ll be making and posting more music and images there and I hope that a small number of you will want to be involved with it.
I have a large catalogue of work that I’ll make available to everyone subscribing and every month I’ll make something new. This last year I have made 10 releases and also a couple of full albums, with many occasional bits and pieces along the way. I make digital and physical releases and send them to anyone signed up. It goes on, with somewhere to put it.
There are a number of options for subscribing and it’s still new so I’m completely open to suggestions and what anyone thinks is fair for the work that I make. Please let me know if you have any reason why you wouldn’t, or you would but something isn’t right.
It’s not for everyone, I get that - but there has to be a better way than all of us throwing all our time, energy and work into the void of social media. Perhaps this is just the same, I’m willing to suck it and see.
More soon then, thanks everyone and I wish you a happy and healthy start to the new year.
Stephen
ps: for everyone signed up for my Bandcamp subscription - I thank you and salute you and promise you that you won’t miss anything. Whatever I make for Patreon I’ll post to you too, and vice versa.
pps: it really is my birthday
The Man Who Loved Beer (Lambchop cover)
From my new 11 song release ‘framus’ available through my new Patreon and Bandcamp subscription pages now. More words about that in a couple of days, for now my Patreon page is here and there’s this cosy clip.
Two early versions of songs from the last album now available
Two early version of songs, acoustic and with different lyrics, are now available to everyone subscribing to my Patreon or Bandcamp.
Each month I make a new release for people subscribed there but this is just a little something in between.
The next proper release in the series of exclusives is an 11 song set I just recorded on a very cheap, but very pretty, 1950’s parlour guitar. That’s out on the 1st, my birthday.
Stay well and eat loads. Got to keep the strength up.
Stephen
The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum - review at African Paper
“…sein abgründiger, schwarzhumoriger Sarkasmus, sein Hadern mit sich und allem anderen und sein Händchen, all dies in treffende Sprachbilder zu packen, zu einer veritablen Kunst herangewachsen ist…”
Which, for all my non-German speaking friends translates into something as dramatic as:
“…his abysmal, black-humoured sarcasm, his quarrel with himself and everything else and his knack for packing all this into appropriate language images has grown into a veritable art…”
Read the full review here and please browse the site for a deep collection of dense text about a wide range of stuff. Writing about music indeed.
New album 'The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum' out now.
Good morning.
My latest collection of songs is now available as a limited CD-r and digital download through Bandcamp and here on my site.
This album was recorded at the end of summer in a big empty room in Stuttgart and is a far thicker and noisier set of songs than the previous ‘bottle the grief’ from earlier in the year. I got my hands a bit dirty with it - was a lot of fun to make and not so easy to finish.
It’s available to buy on Bandcamp today and at most other online places in a week or so . I urge everyone to please stick with the Bandcamp option as it helps all musicians enormously.
If you subscribe to me there (please consider doing so) then you get this album automatically and I sent the CDs out to you a week ago.
The physical version has a unique self portrait on the cover - each one different - and is a numbered edition of 100. An A3 size lyric and chord sheet is inside and all Bandcamp orders come with an immediate download.
TRACK LIST
1. We Make Our Own Fun (06:37)
2. How Your Chest Became A Treasure (05:28)
3. Pottery Below (05:08)
4. Down Down Down (02:58)
5. One Bite At A Time (08:11)
6. Get Clear Of Me (06:01)
7. A Place For The Running To Stop (03:34)
8. The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum (15:54)
BUY THROUGH MY SITE
• Eight new songs recorded at the end of summer in Stuttgart.
• Each cover unique - 100 different self portraits.
• A3 lyric sheet.
• First edition of 100 numbered copies.
Tracklist
we make our own fun
how your chest became a treasure
pottery below
down down down
one bite at a time
get clear of me
a place for the running to stop
the ghost is the only one that beats my drum
• zip file of the full album with 320 kbps mp3 files
Tracklist
we make our own fun
how your chest became a treasure
pottery below
down down down
one bite at a time
get clear of me
a place for the running to stop
the ghost is the only one that beats my drum
BUY ON BANDCAMP
Also, from today, my label Woodland Recordings is offering a free 20 track compilation with every order. A couple of my earlier things are on there as well as brilliant songs from many good friends. See and listen to that here.
I’ll perhaps write more about this album in the next days but I’m always happy if anyone lets me know their thoughts on it too. Sometimes it goes somewhere else and recently of course living and working has been as if in a bubble. I have no idea.
So, made this. Stay well and speak soon.
Stephen
Schangnau
A recording I made in a tiny chapel in Switzerland with Binoculers way back in 2010 is now available to listen and grab over on the Woodland Recordings Bandcamp page. It’s free / pay what you like.
Nadja and I were on tour a lot back then and on this day we were driving from Bern to Luzern and passed this beautiful little place along the fairly scenic way. I sat a mic on a pew and we played for about an hour before hopping back in the car and carrying on. Was a nice little pause.
Pre-order now live and a very limited vinyl available
My new album, ‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’ is finished and now available to pre-order on my Bandcamp site to be released 04.12.20.
I’ve just finished making 100 copies of the physical edition - a CD-r with an A3 lyric sheet and a unique photo on each cover. 100 copies, 100 different self portraits. The full quality digital edition includes a pdf booklet of the lyrics and a handful of gifs.
Please note - all Bandcamp subscribers will automatically receive this album in a week. if you are a subscriber - thank you but please do not pre-order!
‘The Ghost Is The Only One That Beats My Drum’ was recorded in Stuttgart in September and October this year. Loops and percussion for the title track began to suggest structure right after ‘bottle the grief’ was released - I wanted to get stuck into something that I could get my teeth into. Something with meat on the bones.
Julia Laura kindly took some time and sent me backing vocals when the title song was in a skeletal state but otherwise I recorded everything alone in an empty room here. Max Braun helped with sound advice in his studio and finally Spatial Mastering in London communicated wonderfully and worked hard on it last week.
Here’s a simple video for the first song I made a few days ago:
And here’s many more moving images for the title track:
I’ll write and post more about this in a week or so.
Something else - in collaboration with Cosirecords in Oberhausen we’ve made a very limited, super expensive vinyl edition of my 2014 album ‘Kitchen’ available. These are 12 numbered test pressings with simple new artwork and insert.
These are the very last copies we have of this and, right now, the only way to listen to my stuff on vinyl. Nuts.
Making new album, pre-orders coming this weekend
Putting the physical edition of my new album together these days to be ready for the end of the month. New video and pre-orders here and on my Bandcamp this weekend.
'pennabilli'
The 9th in my series of Bandcamp subscription releases is a set of songs recorded in the tiny Teatro Vittoria in the village of Pennabilli, Italy way back in 2011. I was there to play at the XXVII Verucchio Festival and Franco was kind enough to make a session in the little theatre near where we were staying. He recorded everything through a 4-track tape machine and then I took the files away on my hard drive and sat on them for 9 years.
jake
limmat
dig a hole for everyone
suit of stones
all the way down
here
As ever with these Bandcamp releases a physical edition is available to everyone signed up. I sent these out yesterday but if you sign up now I’ll send one out to you after the weekend and you also get all 8 previous releases, 6 albums from my back catalogue and everything new I make going forward. Phew.
THE GHOST IS THE ONLY ONE THAT BEATS MY DRUM
The 16 minute title track from my new album is available as a digital download on Bandcamp and a video on the Woodland Recordings Youtube channel below:
I wrote and recorded this the last few weeks and Julia Laura sent her backing vocals across to me without hearing the whole thing. She’s the voice of reason in this thing.
The video (and album artwork) is constructed from over 500 self portraits I made last week in a forest in the south of Germany, with help from @mart.schneider. I’m putting the album artwork together now and I plan to put it out by the end of November. More soon then.
Thanks all,
Stephen
Free 'September 2020' compilation now available
A new 10 song compilation of songs from last month’s concerts is now available as a free download to everyone signed up for my newsletter here.
when i was away (rostock)
i was in the north before the fall (rendsburg)
down down down (rostock)
pure black coal (rostock)
polly vaughan (berlin)
fold culinary (hannover)
make each other anew (copenhagen)
it don’t stop the bleeding (rostock)
barbara allen (rendsburg)
so long song (berlin)
From a crowded, smoky bar in Hannover through a rainy garden in Rostock and finishing up in a backyard in West Berlin, this was a strange but hugely enjoyable set of concerts at a time when the chance to play in front of people is a rare thing indeed.
Thanks to everyone who made it possible despite everything.
To all on my old fashioned mailing list - I hope you enjoy it and big thanks for sticking with me.
Stephen