Fisheye Amsterdam

Fisheye Amsterdam, a set on Flickr.

Some fisheye photos from a recent trip to Amsterdam.

Best,

Colin

Live in Kiev with Astarta

I've never seen my name written in Cyrillic before, but if you're able to read it, then you'll hopefully see from the poster above that I'll be guesting with Ukrainian Folk Duo "Astarta" at Bochka in Kiev, Ukraine on 8th of April 2013. Doors open at 19.30.

I've been steadily working towards making a full length album with Astarta, things have been progressing, and we're well on the way.

There's some great contributions from some fantastic musicians on the material we've been recording, I'll hopefully be sharing all the details before too long, but for now, you can read my previous blog entry about the collaboration, and hear some of the music by clicking here.

Best,

Colin

Metallic Taste of Blood Live Debut

Very much looking forward to playing live for the first time with Metallic Taste of Blood at the Asymmetry Festival in the beautiful city of Wroclaw, Poland on May 4th.

Eraldo Bernocchi, Balazs Pandi and myself will be joined by Roy Powell, of the band Naked Truth

Click here to visit the festival website for all the information and check out the bill, also including Melvins Lite, UfoMammut, Cult of Luna, Mayhem and lots of others.



I am also happy to say The Metallic Taste of Blood album has just been voted by the staff at Metalstorm.net as the best Avant Garde/Experimental Metal album of 2012, and although having been out for a while now, the album is still picking up some great reviews too , here on the blog horsebits, here on ultimateguitar.com, and also on Dutch website Progwereld.

Bye for now,

Colin

Twinscapes (with Lorenzo Feliciati)

I've been interested in the idea of writing and performing with another bass player for quite some time, and I am pleased to say, next week I'll get the chance to do so.

I'll be playing at the Flyover in London W10 with Italian bassist, composer and arranger Lorenzo Feliciati, who I am mostly familiar with through his work with the mighty Naked Truth, although I've also been digging his recent album "Frequent Flyer".

We have christened ourselves "Twinscapes" which hopefully conveys the ambient, rhythmic, electronic, and atmospheric territory we'll be (dis)covering, with plenty of room for improvisation and interaction too.

Dave Walsh will be joining us on drums, and Matt Stevens will be playing support.

Saturday 16th March at 8pm, The Flyover, 3-5 Thorpe Close, Portobello London W10 5XL

Admission is Free.

Bye for now,

Colin

Guest Activity.

Here's a few recent guest appearances, mostly playing fretless bass:

Firstly, I've recently been playing on some of Bristol based Matthew Richard's Dancing for Architecture material, two of the pieces "Era" and "Glad in the Gloom" you can check out here, there will be more to follow:





Herd of Instinct  have the track "Praxis" from their latest album "Conjure" up on youtube, I'm also on another track on the album as well.



Lastly, along with a whole host of others, I've contributed to Telergy's forthcoming album, currently running in an Indiegogo campaign to bring the new album to release, click the link below for all the details:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/telergy-the-legend-of-goody-cole-album

All the best,

Colin

Burnt Belief Reviews...

Here's a round up of some of the reviews for "Burnt Belief"

HighwireDaze

Muzik Reviews

The Reaction

Echoes

Stars Die

Bass Players United

The Unpage

Also some more here and here and here


There are some recent interviews with Jon Durant and myself also too,

Unsung Melody

Metal Underground

The Examiner

Finally, a review from the latest issue of Prog magazine:

Top Five....

Recently, I was invited by Bass Guitar Magazine to choose five albums which have "Shaped my bass playing", and my thoughts have made it to the current issue.

Of course, there's plenty of things I didn't put on the list, and one of the more obscure choices was this album, which I've been revisiting in a big way :

Another great Gnawa album is "Gift of the Gnawa" by Hassan Hakmoun and the percussionist Adam Rudolph:

I first discovered Gnawa music whilst travelling around Morocco in the late '90's, and witnessed some truly amazing performances, particularly in the beautiful city of Essaouira, (which now holds a yearly gnawa music festival) 

Sadly, I didn't document anything I witnessed, but I have since amassed a pretty decent collection of gnawa albums.

 The music generally features metal castanets, vocals and the guimbri ( which is sometimes also known as a hajouj or sentir), which is perhaps the closest thing in African music to a bass guitar, although it has only three strings. 

It has a limited range of notes, but a distinct deep bass sonorous sound, and I am sure a lot of bass players would find it a rich source of inspiration, hence the reason for this post.

Gnawa music is also very accessible to the ears of most of us Westerners and Europeans, with an almost bluesy, pentatonic tonality and some incredible rhythmic interplay.

 I was inspired enough to buy a guimbri and, (at great inconvenience) bring it back to the UK from Morocco. My own guimbri has seen a bit of action, mainly with Ex-Wise Heads, as gnawa music was kind of a catalyst in Geoff Leigh and I deciding to work together. 

Anyway, the piece below features my own guimbri playing, a track from the Ex-Wise Heads album Liquid Assets, which also features Geoff Leigh playing his Vietnamese jaws harp:

Best,

Colin