Seconded whole heartedly. Lovely logo, lovely work.

Blubbering Praise

The new sea shadow for the logo looks tremendously spunky ... and spermy, by the way. Magnifique!

Breaking News

A new track is on the way. Early reports indicate it will address the topic of cuttlefish and it is believed to originate from a first time contributor in Japan.


In other Superheroes of the Sea news Jacques Piccard, one of the two first men to visit the deepest point on the globe (Challenger Deep in the Marina Tranch) passed away recently. A worthy topic for this album if ever there was one. It took 5 hours to get down there and they only stayed for 20 minutes before starting back up, amazing stuff.

Freedom of the Sea

Well, I feel incredibly lucky ... and HUGELY excited. Not only have I got a song that is already making me cry (and that, miraculously, has a touch of my favourite song of all time, As The World Falls Down), but I have freedom of theme! I might just have to go for a swim somewhere and think about it. Or maybe I'll try having a bath with a stranger - that might provoke some ideas, or some trouble. This first research aspect of the project - the cogitating part - is one of my favourites ...

Stage 1 - Done

We have now reached the half way point on our voyage across the ocean. The backing tracks are in and have been reassigned to the lyricist vocalisers to do their stuff. The quality is up there with the first IML album in my opinion. It has been a great pleasure to hear these brilliant tracks everyone has been writing and equally a great pleasure in determining good homes for them. I hope my assignments will do them the justice they deserve. We have a nice balanced cross section of themes - 5 humans, 2 creatures, 1 ship, 1 concept and finally a mystery topic yet to be decided. Here are the assignments in full:

Composer (Theme) to Lyricist
Ash (Nemo and the Nautilus) to Barney
Oli (Mary Celeste) to Ash
Juju (Spanish Dancer) to Kip
Greg (Sea Cities) to Eric
Barn (Jeanne Bare) to Greg
Turt (Thor Heyerdahl) to Juju
Nick and Dicky (Blackbeard) to Dan W.
Eric (Odysseus) to Oli
Dan W. (???) to Nick
Rob (Plankton) to Turt
Tim M. (Cuttlefish) to Rob

You may notice we are one track short for vocals. We may possibly get a track in from Tim M. or Dan G. in which case I will assign it to yours truly for vocals. Otherwise I may put out to tender for an extra track if anyone has the capacity and will to knock out a quickie.
Have fun with stage 2 IMLers!

Finger ache

I made some headway into my track last night. I've been experimenting with different microphone placements and rooms to get the right sound for the acoustic guitars. That bit's easy. I've also been trying out different string types from ultra light to medium. Blah blah blah. That's all fine but I haven't been playing enough guitar recently so I'm cheese-wiring my fingers. It's sounding good though. Lacking a bass, I've been sticking the electric guitar through some bass amp plug ins which sound OK. Might end up a bit muddy. I'm not sure, but this track may be submitted without a theme at all. I know that when I was running the Superheroes of Science project the ability to listen to a track, choose a scientist and singer, led to a feeling of power never felt before. It would be nice to bestow that power upon Rob.

In other news, I can see that someone has uploaded a backing track already for Superheroes of The Sea but I won't be listening to that until my track's recorded. Just in case, you know, I get scared. Sploosh!

Waves

I listened to a lecture about where waves come from last night. It was pretty dull quite frankly. I liked the first bit where the lecturer said, "here's an introduction for stupid people about waves" but then it all got a bit technical. Anyway. I think I'm wedded to the idea of making a sonic piece which depicts the build up and destruction of a wave (on a central ocean to coast) level. Starting with a simple melody, then layering and layering until it sounds like in this order:

Ambient
Lounge jazz
Speed garage
My Bloody Valentine
And back

It might be a tough one to lyricise but I hope (and I don't want to influence the prospective lyricist), that the story arc of the words could cover the complexity of human life from birth, the bit in between, and death. For individuals, the song could be about oceanographers, but unlike some of the heroes on our last album I haven't found an oceanographer yet, who has, dare I say it, an interesting life. Am I becoming jaded? No, I've just got a cold and have drunk some wine. Anyway, hopefully I'll get better tomorrow night so I can go out with some of the other IMLers and start planning our Science Festival gig. Happy days.