Bye Bye Blogger

 I'm moving from here to Substack from now on. 

Please come and join me, I am planning a paid tier for some extra content, but all subscribers welcome of course: 

https://open.substack.com/pub/colinedwin/p/coming-soon.

O.R.k - DEADLY BITE feat Michaela Naydenova (taken from Screamnasium)

Latest video from O.R.k.  and a few words about Micheala Naydenova.

We’re very happy to announce that O.R.k. will be appearing at the 2Days Prog + 1 Festival in Novara, Italy on September 1st.

In order to make O.R.k. live appearances and tours happen, we have previously always managed to juggle logistics, conflicting schedules and the geographical distances between all four O.R.k. members,  but on this occasion we realised that due to his TU-NER commitments, Pat Mastelotto will be unable to take his usual place with us.

We are very fortunate to be able to confirm that the highly talented drummer Micheala Naydenova (Nervosa) will be filling in for Pat for this date.

Inna Kovtun - "Burning Fires"

Today sees a new release from the marvellous Inna Kovtun, the"K" in EDK and part of the Astarta/Edwin collision collective.

I am on both Upright and Electric Bass, Jon Durant is on guitars and Fractal Sextet's Fabio Anile has created a fantastic string arrangement for a stunning new interpretation of "Kolisanka" which appeared on the Astarta/Edwin album a few years back. Peter Chilvers appears on the track "Always Autumn".

Night Spaces

For anyone who has been following my latest series of weekly releases on Bandcamp, everything from the last couple of months is now up and available as a collection entitled "Night Spaces". The 10 tracks all lean heavily into dub territory, a longstanding but lesser explored influence of mine, and for the most part everything is completely solo, except Reuben Balch who appears on alto sax on "Red As A Cold Star" and David Kollar who contributes some of his tasty leftfield guitarisms to "Satori" "Always the Rain" and also "Red As A Cold Star". Click here to listen - https://music.colinedwin.co.uk/album/night-spaces Also, for the next week, 20% off anything on my Bandcamp page if you enter the code abductee at checkout.

Red As A Cold Star

I've been meaning to write a response to the question, "What's the story behind this week's track?" - referring to the Bandcamp only "Red As A Cold Star"

(https://music.colinedwin.co.uk/track/red-as-a-cold-star) - forgive the link, the embed code for the Bandcamp player seems to be uncooperative. I am sure the birth of this particular track was among a number of intial ideas I came up with to accompany a sculpture installation based around the theme of underground landscapes, caves, stones and rocks. The overall atmosphere that needed to come across was the feeling of "Deep Time" - time in the geological sense and that which our short human life spans can barely comprehend. "Deep Time" can be imagined when you take the opportunity to look up at the stars on a clear night, their light takes so long to reach us, that we are quite literally looking into the distant past and seeing them as they were millions or billions of years ago. The oldest stars, being cooler, glow with a red light than the younger, hotter stars which appear blue. I was cross referencing this idea of red stars in my mind with the many ancient red hand prints found in caves once used by Prehistoric people, or in rock art by indigenous people in many different parts of the world. Why are they most often red? The image in the artwork for Red as A Cold Star is a photo I took in the Margate Shell Grotto. One of the most myterious places in the U.K. - no one knows for sure when it was created or for what purpose....itself a message from deep time perhaps? Maybe not geologically deep time, but generations old for sure. Red As A Cold Star will disappear from my bandcamp page this Friday, to be replaced by something as yet unreleased.....so grab it now if it grabs you. Credits: Colin Edwin - Double Bass, Programming, Drones etc Reuben Balch - Alto Saxophone David Kollar - Guitars

Snorkel

Finally something new. "Snorkel" is the first of another set of weekly tracks which will be replaced each week by something new. This is another "pay as you like" pricing model, and this and those forthcoming may or may not appear as a collection at some point.
Inspired by what you see on the cover, some part of the remains of a burnt out petrol station which I came across in Australia some time ago, and which resembled some kind of primitive bathyscaphe.

https://music.colinedwin.co.uk/track/snorkel

O.R.k. - Some Other Rainbow Parts 1 & 2: BlistyKCam Road Movie Version

Please enjoy this montage of various videos taken by Pat Mastelotto on the recent O.R.k. European tour, and set to the sound of "Some Other Rainbow" from our third album Ramagehead.

Lots of mileage, lots of late night checking into hotels with patience testing machines instead of receptionists, some truly great scenery, truckstops, motorway servos, a few out of the way excursions some truly memorable gigs and lots of new energy.....

"Wonder Why" - O.R.k.

 “Wonder Why” offers a rare insight behind the O.R.k. creative process, being a previously unheard and undeveloped, raw version of O.R.k.’s atmospheric album closer “Someone Waits”.

The new album Screamnasium itself was birthed during the Covid19 lockdown period, with everyone in the band keeping their creative minds alive by working on the music together, passing files and ideas over the internet.

“Wonder Why” is also a near perfect example of a painful synchronicity. News of the death of Pat Mastelotto’s longtime friend and King Crimson bandmate Bill Rieflin broke just as Lef, who was completely unaware of Bill’s illness, sent Pat his improvised scratch vocal parts.

Along with the overall atmosphere of the piece, the vocal line “Goodbye my friend…” appeared to frame the moment in a very fitting, albeit unfortunate manner.

At times, uncertainty and loss go hand in hand and “Wonder Why",  pandemic conceived as it was, mirrors the circumstances surrounding its creation, but also highlights a timeless, reflective, and deeply resonant moment.

"Wonder Why" will only be available until the end of March 2023 on the following link, after that it'll be taken down and will disappear back into the archives: 

https://orkband.bandcamp.com/track/wonder-why

New Interview with Innerviews (Anil Prasad)

Out now is a lengthy and in depth conversation/interview with Anil Prasad, on his long running Innerviews website.

https://www.innerviews.org/inner/colin-edwin

Mostly focussed on my recent activity with O.R.k., Fractal Sextet, Endless Tapes and also the Ukrainian connection.

Lisa's War Diary - The First Week (Edit)

Jon Durant, Inna Kovtun and myself have created an audio backdrop to complement a spoken word diary, originally written by Kyiv resident and street photographer Lisa Bukreyeva, documenting her thoughts and feelings during the first 130 days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout the diary, Lisa describes the inescapable reality of the current conflict.

The diary is narrated by Nisha Pannu, whose northern English diction actually doesn't feel out of place in bringing the translation to life from the original text.

Lisa's War Diary is part of a wider exhibition of contemporary Ukrainian photographers put together by a very old friend of mine, Stuart Roy Clarke, and which has been running at the Rheged Centre in Penhills in the English Lake District for several months now and is scheduled to run until January 8th 2023.

The images on the trailer above, (which is the first week or so of the diary, the full thing being around half an hour long), range from documentary images to more abstract artistic photographs, and are all taken from the exhibition, high quality prints are also available to order with all profits going directly to the photographers involved.

Future plans include moving the exhibition to other parts of the UK and possibly the USA (currently under discussion) and also a possible book format for the imagery. For now I'd just like to share the trailer, and encourage anyone who is able to, to go and see the exhibition in real life. 

For more information please see: https://stuartroyclarke.com/ukraine-i-miss-you/

Something Old - Something New.

 Very pleased to say that Alessandro Pedretti and I have rebooted Endless Tapes with some new material, our first release since 2016's "Brilliant Waves" - "Third Reel" is a digital only release in partnership with Sonoton Music in Germany and is available to stream here: 

https://open.spotify.com/album/60ndHh6EARoILlBvjoWRen?si=_G9DDwkdSwmppHqB4oZpEA

Third Reel features 5 tracks recorded over the early part of 2022 with another great cover image courtesy of Carl Glover at Aleph (Carl also made the images for our previous releases)

Tracklisting:

1. The Pilot Exits

2. Upstream Colours

3. Lemons and Demons

4. Flashbulb Memories

5. Open Circles

Since Brilliant Waves Alessandro Pedretti and have collaborated on some abstract "installation music" for a sculpture trail in Northern Italy, but Third Reel is more in the spirit of "Brilliant Waves", our work together always brings something new to the surface, and I think Third Reel EP is a worthy continuation.

Secondly, I am very happy so say that O.R.k's first album "Inflamed Rides" is seeing a vinyl release for the first time ever. The reissue also benefits from a much improved remix and remaster with the CD version also having some extra tracks, including our -dare I say it- idiosyncratic Bowie cover "I'm Afraid of Americans" which has been a longtime favourite in our live shows, this is the first time it's been available in any physical format at all.

The two most recent O.R.k. albums (Screamnasium and Ramagehead) have had a much higher profile than the first two, so I know this album slipped under a number of radars in 2015, but despite Inflamed Rides getting a fairly limited release, it was very well received, I am posting below a few reviews that came out at the time:

https://theprogressiveaspect.net/blog/2015/11/06/o-r-k-inflamed-rides/

https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/o-r-k-inflamed-rides

http://www.liverpoolsoundandvision.co.uk/2015/07/16/o-r-k-inflamed-rides-album-review/

https://www.leontk.com/2015/05/31/o-r-k-inflamed-rides-review/

As well as a new mix and master, the new Inflamed Rides also comes in a very fetching blue vinyl. Available here: https://ork.lnk.to/inflamedrides 

O.R.k - Screamnasium - Out Now

Screamnasium is out now on, CD, Black or Green vinyl and various digital formats: https://ork.lnk.to/screamnasium

O.R.k. will be touring next year, so please connect with us via our newsletter which can be accessed here:  https://linktr.ee/orkband

Early press reception has been great, a small selection of reviews below:

https://www.unitedrocknations.com/chronique-ork-screamnasium-4049 (France)

https://musikreviews.de/reviews/2022/ORk-/Screamnasium (Germany)

https://www.betreutesproggen.de/2022/10/ork-screamnasium/ (Germany)

https://www.myrevelations.de/2022/10/20/o-r-k-screamnasium/ (Germany)

https://www.impattosonoro.it/2022/10/21/recensioni/o-r-k-screamnasium/ (Italy)

https://metal.it/album.aspx/46236/27976/ork-screamnasium (Italy)

https://metal-digest.com/2022/10/22/o-r-k-screamnasium/

https://ramzine.co.uk/reviews/o-r-k-screamnasium/

https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/ork-pitch-gentle-dexterity-against-bludgeon-on-the-beautiful-screamnasium

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/o-r-k-screamnasium-review/

Yogev Gabay talks about Fractal Sextet

Enjoyable video from the fantastic drummer Yogav Gabay, deconstructing the rhythmic cycle underlying Fractal Sextet's "Mise En Abyme" and talking about his approach to the drums. CD's available here

O.R.k. - Don't Call Me A Joke (Official Video)

Taken from the forthcoming album "Screamnasium" : https://ork.lnk.to/screamnasium

Fractal Sextet (Teaser)

Available here on a special preorder lower price until September 16th: https://burningshed.com/fractal-sextet_fractal-sextet_cd

Brightest Blue - Tim Bowness

Massive thanks to Tim Bowness for donating these two brand new 2022 interpretations of his song "Brightest Blue" to the AE Appeal page. Recorded in the UK and US during the Summer of 2022, two new versions of the Tim Bowness song Brightest Blue - written about the 1990s Yugoslav conflict and originally on the 1994 Tim Bowness / Richard Barbieri album Flame - will be available from Bandcamp from September 1. Yours truly on bass for both versions, also featuring my EDK partners, American guitarist Jon Durant, Ukrainian Folk singer Inna Kovtun, drummer Andrew Booker and keyboardist Brian Hulse (both from the UK). ‘Electric' (a synth based version) has been mixed and mastered by Brian Hulse and ‘Sky’ (an Ambient Rock interpretation) has been mixed and mastered by Nosound’s Giancarlo Erra. Free to download but please donate if you can, as with all the music on the Bandcamp page, all funds go to Humanitarian Aid for Ukraine

O.R.k. - Screamnasium - Album Trailer

Following on from last month's single "As I Leave", I am happy to say that O.R.k. album four, "Screamnasium" will be out in October. Right now, “Screamnasium” feels to me like the album we’ve been trying to make since we first conceived the band, both sonically and in terms of the songwriting and subject matter. All four of us are playing to our natural strengths and we’ve managed to express both light and shade and all sorts of colours in between. It reflects our recent pasts, and directs some energy towards a more hopeful future. For me it’s been kind of a depurative, and I really hope that overall feeling comes across. Pre Order link for digital, vinyl and CD can be found here: https://ork.lnk.to/screamnasium

Fractal Sextet

The Fractal Sextet album is finally due out in September 2022. Featuring Stephan Thelen and Jon Durant on guitars, Keyboardist Fabio Anile, Andi Pupato on percussion, Yogev Gabay on drums and yours truly on bass. It's perhaps best described as a deep dive into extended odd time, modal improvisation, with five lengthy tracks across the album as a whole. Most of the music originates from existing compositions by Stephan and Fabio, but the music has definately evolved into something of it's own with contributions from everyone involved, creating a very distinct group identity and I think it's appropriate to use the word "synergy".

If you're curious to check out an early review, please click here CD Pre-Order link can be found here

Inna Kovtun - Bandcamp Page

Inna Kovtun is the "K" in EDK-) and she has a new Bandcamp page with some more Ukrainian folk based crossover collision music ie. Ukrainian folk songs with new interpretations. Please see: https://innakovtun.bandcamp.com/ I am on upright, electric bass and programming, with guitars and additonal programming by Jon Durant.

O.R.k. - "As I Leave" - Video by Chiara Orsi

Very pleased to finally share the news that "As I Leave" the latest track from O.R.k. is out today. Stunning video work by Chiara Orsi, who has managed to capture something almost indefinable about the atmosphere of the track. As with the rest of our forthcoming album, more on that later, the track has been mixed by Machine who has done a fantastic job. Lyrically, “As I Leave” is an ambiguous contemplation on the inexplicable reasons for close personal bonds and human connections. It’s a song for anyone who ever desired deeper connections with another, but in some puzzling way, just couldn’t make it work. The profoundest differences are rarely geographical, as most of us have discovered over the last few years. There’s often an unknowable reason under the surface, did your blow your chance? … or did your dreams just get old? "As I Leave" is out now on all the usual Digital platforms : https://ork.lnk.to/asileave