Full Spaces

Digging into the cracks...

Why not listen to the album while reading these Virtual Sleeve Notes
Click here to listen to the album

A little insight into the “Full Spaces” album, released in July 2022

It was all recorded in a small home studio in Sheffield, UK with international contributions from Wales, USA and Japan

^{Apple Mac}
^GarageBand
^{Spitfire Labs and BBC SO}
^microKorg
^{Yamaha SY35 & NP-30}
^{Varies Guitars}
^{Mastered on Bandlab}
^{Made with the love of my family}

So It Goes
A tune originally written on the piano back in 2019, gently morphed and developed with the introduction of BBC symphonic orchestration and a massive beat, and then seriously taken leftwards with DJ effects and heavy edits from a 15-minute experiment into the extremes. The track’s heavy theme is punctuated with samples of an extract from the remarkable Kurt Vonnegut novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” read faithfully by my friend from Ohia, USA Thurman Edward Allen.
Pulling Focus (Feat. Shopkeeper)
Originally composed as a cue for an advert, the unusual loop and sound just needed pushing further. With multiple relistens the lyrical phrases that kept coming to mind, were the wonderful tongue-twisting lines from “Sugarblast” by 1990’s English psychedelic rock band, Dr. Phibes and the House of Wax Equations. Delivered beautifully and menacingly by local Sheffield artist Shopkeeper
US (feat. Faith)
Faith MW Buckley is an extraordinary spoken word artist, teacher and founder of the inspiring Full Spectrum Project. A colleague and friend for many years, when I first heard the magnificent poem “US” back in February 2021, I knew I’d have to try write a hopeful and celebratory house tune around it. With the promise of change instilled in the poem, but not quite there yet, it’s written with a time signature of 17/16
Nature Boi
My hip-hop roots founded this song, sampling a pretty well know tune from an unusual source, everything fell into place when a found the drums and wrote the piano loop, on the very day same day I was watching season 2 of The Sinner, which presented another perfect sample opportunity.
The main hook was originally sung by many many different virtual voices but truly lifted by kind contributions and harmonies from Rosa Audus, Debbie Audus and Tony Middleton.

Its not a record click at the end…

SIDE B
Déjà vu
You know I think I’ve been here before… originally written in August 2019 and very shortly afterwards played on BBC Introducing of the 1^st time, as an untitled track. It returns to my love of D’n’B beats and my NY Sushi days. Influenced by my love of Jazz and a Bristol beat…. Suitably renamed by my wife.
Look out for the Déjà vu Remix EP coming soon.
Aneej
A laid back groove and experiment into backwards beats. Vocal line performed by Em Kay , it wasn’t until album distribution that I discovered it was a cover of a massive Bollywood hit from 2015….!!! The cutting, resampling and arpeggiation of vocal line renders it original…?
Bangō
Playing for the very 1^st time with Ableton arpeggiator to control my mini Korg, came up with the loop and had to sample it… I built to tune around the rolling beat and developing loop. The spoken samples were taken from the Computer Studies Series from Prismatron Productions, “Introduction to Programming. Bangō is the Japanese for numbers, so I hope you’ve learnt something.
The cats will know (so let’s buy a dog)
Written once again on piano, this darkly melodic tune was brought to life with Cesare Pavese’s Italian poem “The Cats will know”……. That never mentions a dog!
Make It Real
The original guitar and vibes loop were written on an iPad back in 2011 and includes a very young Rosa on “ow!” As you can imagine this tune has gone through many iterations over the years with a working title of “I can write Hip Hop” for many of them. Finally perfected in 2022 with the help from Ricky Chopra, an acapella from Renegade On The Beat and a little bit of Kamaal the Abstract
Taihai 退廃
This ode to my time in Tokyo, very quickly became the inevitable last track on this album. The hypnotic brushed beat, trippy beat and real life sounds captured in Japan. Returning to the extract from the Vonnegut novel, this time read by Kumi Masamori. The track was named by Emi Sugimoto “TAIHAI” means decadence.

If you do invest the time to listen to this album, please let me know. Steve

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