04 Stripper Girlfriend

An extended, slightly reordered and very slightly augmented mix of Mark Thirlwell's splendid original track.

The Cruelty Man - extended version

Yet another version of Follow Me Down. This one's much more heavily worked than the other two. Also, it's only country for about a verse and a half.

Follow Me Down (Country)

Anfang Is The Tree God

Mainly written on MuseScore and exported to Reaper for editing and processing.

It's Fun To Obey The Machine

The fourth mix of this song, and hopefully the best one so far. The drum track is a field recording of a kid busking in Coventry town centre, using pots, pans and plastic tubs. I still can't get rid of the ducking on that track, but, frankly, I've given up trying.

Nothing Shows Through

The only field recording on this is Joe Evans playing his kick drum at a sound check. It's what gives the long outro its heft. 

As for the song's message, it was originally entirely personal - about the way we sabotage ourselves, and suggesting that at least sometimes that's because we don't really want what we assume we want. "When you don't love what you think you do, you pull back from the brink and do The Stupid".

But in the light of recent events it occurred to me that the same message could be applied to the country as a whole. We did the stupid.

Do The Stupid

I ought to have called this "Funky Toon" but I didn't. Written mainly to try out various production features in Reaper, it features a field recording of a journey on Newcastle's metro. The final sound isn't the sea, it's traffic passing under the Tyne Bridge where scores of gulls nest and squark.

Byker

Like "Byker", this is based around a field recording made when I was up in Newcastle. And, no, that's not your wifi playing up.

Cullercoats

Remixed and remastered. I've also removed the original outro and replaced it with... well, your hardcore lefties will recognise it.

Philip Cartwright 1

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