Twinscapes Preview and Cover Image

The Twinscapes album,  a joint effort between myself and Italian bassist and composer Lorenzo Feliciati is something I've been working on throughout this year, and I am pleased to say it's now finally mixed, mastered and at the manufacturing stage. The release date is set for mid February 2014 through Rarenoise on CD, Vinyl and various digital formats.

It's been a really inspiring, continually surprising and also enjoyable process working on the album, not least because the two bass format has certainly made me re-evaluate and re-think some aspects of my own approach to playing, and also enabled me to explore some of the sonic possibilities of processing the bass with various effects that I usually can't find a context for.

Additionally, Lorenzo and I have been able to expand the album's sound with input from some amazing guest musicians, who have each added their own very special performances.

 Nils Petter Molvaer, with some of his absolutely transcendent and instantly recognizable trumpet playing.

Drummer Roberto Gualdi, (also of PFM) has played two powerful and intense performances.

Once described as the "Van Gogh of the Saxophone", David Jackson  (of the legendary Van Der Graaf Generator) contributes some magnificently spirited saxophone.

Andi Pupato, is perhaps best known as a former member of the intense "Zen-funk" group Nik Bartch's Ronin, although I also knew his work with Slow Electric and guitarist Robert Jurjendal, plays an array of percussion and has also added some unique sonic elements.

The album has been mixed by bassist/producer Bill Laswell, of whose playing and musical approach I have been a longterm admirer.

The album cover image above uses a photo taken by yours truly, utilising Redscale film and my trusty Fisheye2 camera.

I am pretty sure I took this in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whilst on tour a few years ago. I took a few rolls of film whilst wandering around, and I found it to have plenty of interesting urban geometry.
There is of course some stunning scenery in New Mexico, but I'll save that for another blog...

Design is by Stefano Fratus.

In order to hear some of the sounds, there is now a Twinscapes album preview edit on the Rarenoise Jukebox:

…and not forgetting, a very short youtube trailer over on my channel:

I'll be posting up pre-order information, track listing, etc in the near future.

Best,

Colin