Musicological meanderings

A quick note to say that I’ve teamed up with my friend of many years, Daragh Downes, to populate the Five Grand Stereo blog with some articles about our favourite artists and music.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be publishing a lot more, but for now you can enjoy the following:

• a look at the making of David Bowie’s classic Hunky Dory album

• a revisiting of the Beatle's’ Revolver album and the role Geoff Emerick played in its development

• a discussion about whether or not Geoff Emerick was the ‘real’ Beatles producer

• a discussion on the breakup of The Beatles

• a review of the recent Liam Gallagher and John Squire mashup.

There’s talk of it developing into a podcast…more on which later.

Deluxe version of 'Sex and Money' now available

As you probably know Five Grand Stereo is where I do the bulk of my music-making these days. Just a quick note to let you know that there’s a deluxe download version of the band’s album out now, which contains

• the album in two formats: CD quality (WAVs) and MP3

• two exclusive bonus CD-quality bonus tracks: a live performance of ‘Clip Joint’ and a studio recording of ‘Baby’s in The Band’ (neither are available on Spotify or other major streaming services)

• ten exclusive, hi-resolution live images

• album cover

• liberetto and lyrics

You can find out more on the Five Grand Stereo store section.

Recording keyboard parts with Michael Kirkland

Here is a clip from a new track I'm working on, This Stuff. Michael is playing my weird old keyboard from (I think) the early 80s. An 'Orla'. It makes a lot of farty noises but every now and then you can coax something rather nice out of it.

Anyhoo, enjoy - video below.

Recording session for Chris Singleton's third album - this time, we whip an organ out for a track called 'This Stuff'.

Saxophones in the studio

A lot of instruments, including some fairly obscure ones, have ended up on my recordings. But one instrument that hasn't (somewhat surprisingly) is the saxophone. So imagine my delight when it turns out that my good friend and fellow Hackney-ite Michael Kirkland turns out to be a very soulful sax player. Had to have him round to blow some notes all over some of my new stuff.

Do take a listen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9SgzrQUW_M (or if you're via player below).

Michael Kirkland records saxophone on Chris Singleton's "Baby's in the Band" track, resulting in a quite Lennonesque "Walls and Bridges" era sound.

New mini-documentary about Twisted City

I've gone all 'Behind The Music' and put together a little video about the making of Twisted City. This is maybe a little self-indulgent, as I can't say Q or Mojo regularly include it in their top 100 albums of all time, but I know that there is a little band of Twisted-City lovers out there, and this video is for them. It's got commentary about the recording of the album, tracks, and photos that I haven't put online before. Plus a truckload of bad haircuts.

The video can be watched at http://www.youtube.com/embed/1l8n9RLLcdg

A mini documentary about the making of Chris Singleton's first album, 'Twisted CIty'. Features tracks from the album, commentary and a host of unseen photographs from album photoshoots (and a few bad haircuts to boot). Download the album free at http://www.chrissingletonmusic.com