Originally on the 2009 album 'It's always a bit more work than you think' - from live recordings of me & Dave Nicholls on guitars, bass, keys.   can't remember who did what.  but the guitar playing is good - so it must be Dave.  the 2009 version was a great arrangement, but a terrible mixdown.  reworked here, with some vocals - but by and large the track is very simliar to what it originally was.  
when the guitars come in after the breakdown....  goosebump moment!! haha.

Turn It Off And On Again II

This is a remix of the track Sprial Flow by David Nicholls - the original can be found here:  https://soundcloud.com/david-c-nicholls/spiral-flow?si=0229429425584d10b104b265d9a755f9& 
David and I were in a band at University.  He's an awesome guitarist.  I probably ruined his plans by saying no to a potential support tour, because I'd just started work.  Sorry Dave.

From the original, I took the main piano line and built vocals / verse / chorus around that.  the original is much more diverse in its chord structures and has some wicked synth lead sounds that I couldn't really get to work on this remix.   I do blend in some of the original track right at the end. 

This is the last track, completing 'Who's Got The Controller'.  Not quite done before the end of 2024, but close.

Spiral Flow

The original Duck Legs was written from a jamming session with Dave Nicholls (who's on a number of other tracks here.  A genius guitarist, who I used to be in a band with at university called Amber Waves.)
this was a remix of that track, where I fully loaded up the arps from the Novation A-Station and Access Virus.  It's a bit too long yes.  And some issues on levels and being too loud.
So i've run through Ozone and tweaked it a bit here in 2025 to put it out there.
Dave always said he actually preferred the remix, even though I'd somewhat diminished the amount of guitar on the track.  
There wasn't ever any cover art for this one.  So I've had to do a piece in 2025.  Which is from a wonderful picture my sister Caroline took.  with added toy ducks, because let's be honest those swans aren't fooling anyone if they say they're ducks.

Duck Legs

In the spring of 2008, Amanda Merrow and Katie Baldwin met for the first time as apprentices at the Peconic Land Trust’s Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett. Under the guidance of mentor Scott Chaskey, during their yearlong apprenticeship, they learned all the ins and outs of farming.

A year later, Merrow and Baldwin leased a nearby plot of land from East Hampton Town and created their own farm — Amber Waves. 

Today, Amber Waves has a total of 35 tillable acres and in addition to growing crops, offers CSA membership and educational programming and operates a brick-and-mortar market. Amber Waves also employs 30 people on a year-round basis, and many more as seasonal help.

This week, Amanda Merrow joins the editors to talk about the creation of Amber Waves and the importance of fostering the next generation of East End farmers.

The Future of Farming, with Amanda Merrow of Amber Waves

premiere22

This was probably the last track that I wrote before moving to Singapore wrote it with Dave round his house - round the elephant and it’s it was a song with fair bit of quite heavy guitar mainly played by Dave and a few other bits and pieces on synths from me. 

I named it after the hotel that I’d stayed in in Singapore a couple months earlier when I’d done a reccy.  But really I knew because I’ve discussed with Emma if we had a baby girl we’d call her Scarlett which of course we did - about three years later in Singapore. 

So 15 years later as with Men in the other tracks around this time, I am finally getting around to finishing it this time with a bit of an overhaul, adding new vocals. I actually got rid of most of the synths and redid them with some new sounds. I changed the drums completely and the whole arrangement. But the heart of it remains - which is Dave’s pretty awesome guitar playing.

ScarletOne

A remake of a track from round about 2008 / 2009 written with David Nicholls or Amber Dave.  Its from the sessions that spawned two tracks this one and Hey Now Sister.  
This one as the title suggests was quite dominated by Dave playing the guitar with an ebow, obviously inspired by R.E.M. and Ebow the letter.  
My version always managed to get a good groove going on the original. David even said he liked it at the time anyway spin forward into 2025. I’ve kept that groove, trimmed the whole track down a bit. 
The original didn’t have singing, but did have a recording of a hypnosis session that I’d had that year.  I’d  cut and pasted bits of the session into into the track. I’ve only kept one bit of those soothing words in this remake - right at the end, but I have added some actual singing vocals.

Take Your Ebow Off The Table

30+ years of writing music.  now back to lots of hardware to complement the soft synths.  And of course, the compulsion to add the kitchen sink, fridge and oven is still there!

Kit:
Logic 
Cubase
Ableton Live
Reason
Expose
Loopcloud
Arturia V collection, Pigments
Arturia microfreak, minifreak, matrixbrute, minibrute, Spark 
Roland boutique Juno, Jupiter, JP3, 808 and 909
Arturia Audiofuse
Focusrite Scarlett
Roland Jupiter Xm, JD-Xi, Gaia SH-01 MDC-1 Dance Module
Korg Modwave, microKorg, MicroKorg XL, korg ER-1, korg 05RW, kaoss pad
Novation ultranova, mininova, a-station, Circuit Tracks
Access Virus-b
Beringher Deep Mind 12, UB-Xa, TD-3, Crave, MS-1
Nord Stage EX
Sequential Prophet 2000
Waldorf Pulse
M-audio Venom
Native instruments kontakt, massive, reaktor, FM8, battery, guitar rig, traktor, maschine, absynth, and the rest of the ultimate collection 
Spectrasonics Omnisphere
Spitfire Albion 
Aria orchestra 
Softube Parallels
Waves Gold and a lot of their plug ins. Abbey Road TG, brauer motion, butch vig vocals, ovox, flow motion
Isotope ozone
Sugar Bytes effectrix, looperator, turnado, factory, cyclop, obscurium 
Audio damage dubstation, panstation
AAS lounge lizard, strum, chromophone
UVI relay 
Fender Stratocaster 
Schecfer Diamond Electric 
Line6 Pod Guitar Mukti Effects 
Boss guitar multi effects and various other pedals 
Peavey Bass 
Yamaha DTX electronic drum kit 
Alesia drum pads 
Stanton turntables

The editors of The Express News Group talk about what news on the East End.

New tracks tagged #amber waves