As promised earlier in the month today is the day that I start giving away one track every week for the next 3 months.
This week’s track is Carpathia – originally inspired by the story of the ship that rescued most of the survivors of the Titanic disaster. Morbidly appropriate that this is the first track as today is exactly 100 years since the Titanic struck that fateful iceberg.
This is from my first album, Transient Emotions, and is a bit lacking in mixing and mastering expertise (as I was quite inexperienced back then) – but the music is from the same spring of inspiration so I hope you’ll enjoy it!
To celebrate the fact that Infinity Plus One is my 8th official album of released music (7 Purple Rhapsody and 1 Divine Nature) I’ve decided that for the next 3 months I’ll be giving away some free music!
(So why is it because it’s my 8th album that I’m doing this…? Well why not? I just think I’ve now got a respectable catalogue of music from which to choose…)
This means that if I give away one track each week you’ll get 13 tracks available to download gratis – and that’s what I’m going to do! I’ve come up with a shortlist of about 25 tracks – it’s really hard to decide which ones to give away so I’ll be deciding over the next couple of weeks which of those 25 will make the final list; however I know right now that the first track will be Carpathia from Transient Emotions (my very first album!) and to commemorate the fact that the RMS Carpathia was the ship that rescued over 700 passengers from the icy waters after the RMS Titanic sank I’ll be making it available on the 14th of April – the day that the Titanic hit that fateful iceberg 100 years ago causing it to sink early in the morning of the 15th.
Each week a different track will be uploaded and made available, and the previous week’s track will be taken down – the tracks will mainly be taken from my official releases but there may be a surprise or two in there as well… watch this space for details!
I hope you like the idea of music for nothing, and I also hope that you’ll take advantage of me and download everything you can (and on another note – on my Reverbnation page there are already a freely few downloadable tracks and similarly on my Soundcloud page too)!
Today, 29th February 2012, was a very special day (I say ‘was’ because as I write it’s almost 10pm) – and what was I doing for 90% of it? Yup, I was working! Working! WORKING!!!!
Oh how I’d love to give up work and be a full time musician but I’m guessing my time is probably passed – perhaps if I’d been born 20 years later I’d have had the benefit of all the wonderful tools that modern technology gives and in the creative and often misspent years of my youth I’d have had the courage to say ‘what the hell’ and go for broke.
Alas, I was not born twenty years later, and now at the ripe old age of <censored> I’m now releasing my 8th album of music.
God I sound like a grumpy old bugger, don’t I? But, to be brutally honest, I’m just glad that in the world we live in today I’ve got the luxury of being able to spend some of my time creating music and fulfilling my teenage dream of having an album of music available for people to listen to (and buy if they’re so inclined) – FOR THE 8TH TIME!
You know, I read a decent amount of Science Fiction and in any time travel story there are always the kind of discussions that start with ‘what if…?’ What if I went back and killed my Grandfather (although why on earth would you do that!)? What if I killed Hitler before the war? And so on, and on, ad nauseum. Well I sometimes do the same thing and wonder, would the music I create be any different if I’d been born later? Or if I’d not had a tempestuous and sanity-threatening first marriage would my music be as emotive? Perhaps it’s the wonderfully loving and supportive marriage I’m in now that is my inspiration! After all, who needs angst and stress (although I have got plenty of that!) to produce good music.
I guess after all this rambling what I’m actually saying is that on the day of release of Infinity Plus One I believe it to be the best album of music I’ve ever made. What makes my inspiration flow? I honestly can’t say, but whatever it is let’s hope it keeps coming because I plan to make my next album even better!
Anyway… read all about Infinity Plus One and listen to the whole albumon the Purple Rhapsody site, buy it from iTunes, Amazon, or CD Baby (other digital download retailers are available), or just ignore this long ramble!
Just a quick update to let you know that you can pre-order proper, old-fashioned, physical CDs of Infinity Plus One now from the Discography page. If you order this weekend you’ll have them by the official day of release!
Digital download will be available from the usual culprits on the 29th February.
Well I’ve been updating you every so often on the progress of Infinity… Plus One and now I have a release date for it. It will be released on Wednesday, 29th February 2012, a great date. Oh, and it’s lost it’s dots! The title has changed slightly to be Infinity Plus One with no ellipsis after ‘Infinity’. Not a major change, obviously!
The artwork has been finalised, it is similar to on my previous post but Sara, the photographer (and my lovely wife) decided she wanted to try again, and her second attempt was more fitting.
I’ve put another track from the album up on Soundcloud as well – it’s called Frictionless Echoes and you can either listen to it in the player below, or click this link.
Well, I think the mastering is now completed for Infinity… Plus One. It will all need a good listen again to make sure that it’s definitely done but I think it’s time now to let a select few hear it and get some feedback from outside my immediate family.
Assuming it’ll take about 4 weeks to get it to people and to receive feedback, I think a target release of the end of February seems like a good target (maybe even February 29th? It’s not often there’s a chance to release an album on that date!).
A provisional cover image has been put together too. I usually scour royalty-free image sites to find something suiting the image I have in my head, but this time I had no need. My wonderful wife, Sara, is an amateur photographer and so she took a photograph that matched what I wanted!
So, all in all this was a great weekend (and I even got to watch The Return Of The Jedi on BluRay, but that’s a story for a different blog)!.
Btw, I still haven’t decided what to do regarding the long track I mentioned in my last blog post… all thoughts welcome!
First of all… HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all. I hope that 2012 is a great year and brings you all closer to your hopes and dreams.
I just thought I’d start the year off as I mean to continue by updating the Purple Rhapsody blog, let’s hope I can carry on updating it as things happen!
The big news today is that the music for the next album, Infinity… Plus One, is all recorded! There are 5 tracks in all: one 32 minutes long and four shorter ones. The album has an overall concept of Infinity and most of the tracks are recorded with synthesisers, guitars, drums, and piano.
The next stage is for me to listen to it until I can bear no more – so that I can find all the little niggles and fix them prior to mastering the album.
I have quite a large decision to make regarding the long track… it has 9 distinct sections and could be split into 9 tracks on the album, but that would mean that the album would be more expensive (iTunes and Amazon base the price on the number of tracks). However, if it is just released as one 32 minute track it will not be downloadable from iTunes or Amazon except as part of the whole album (they put a limit on a track length of 10 minutes).
Any thoughts on this dilemma are welcomed – please comment below if you’ve got any thoughts!
I’ll keep you updated as things progress!
Meanwhile, there are a few early versions of 3 or 4 tracks from the album on my Soundcloud page.
Every Friday from 18th November through to the 16th December you’ll have the chance to win a copy of A Purple Christmas on Twitter and Facebook.
Each week I’ll tweet and post a message on the Friday and you’ll get one entry into the draw if you ‘Like’ my Facebook page and share the message, and you’ll also get one entry into the draw if you Follow @PurpleNews on Twitter and retweet the competition tweet. So you could end up with twice the chance to win!
Anyways, I’m away to get up to more music making shenanigans !
Well, after weeks and weeks of hard work and commitment, neglecting my family, and generally being a bit geeky a new website design has been launched!
It’s not too fancy behind the scenes but I think it’s a lot prettier than the old one – visit http://purplerhapsody.co.uk to see it in all it’s fanciness.
Well, once again it’s been too long since my last blog post… but I’ve been a very, very, busy bee!
Since my last blog entry I’ve prevaricated and delayed, I’ve hummed and I’ve hawed… and in the end I decided to release a Purple Rhapsody Christmas single… but then my wife persuaded me to make it a Christmas EP – which seems like a mammoth task when it needs to be completed by the end of October to stand a chance of being released for Christmas…!
But guess what? Yup, that’s right… I’ve only just gone and done it, ain’t I?
If all goes according to plan, A Purple Christmas will be available to buy from the 11th of November… yup, that’s 11/11/11!
The cover is clean and simple – based on an image from user ‘magicmarie’ on SXC (I used another one of her images as the background for the Endless Lives album cover).
As I type, CDBaby is processing the digital download and the physical copies are being readied for selling from the Purple Rhapsody site.
There are 4 tracks on the EP, all nice Christmas Carols… except when a Purple Rhapsody arrangement comes to the fore, who knows what its going to end up sounding like…?
Well… actually, you can know. Check out the set on my Soundcloud page to get an early listen (unless of course the end of October is far too early to be listening to Christmas music)!
So, after 3 weeks of living and breathing Christmas music it’s time for a rest… perhaps I’ll get back to my next album, Infinity… Plus One, or maybe just chill – after all, it’s almost Christmas!!!!!
God I sound like a grumpy old bugger, don’t I? But, to be brutally honest, I’m just glad that in the world we live in today I’ve got the luxury of being able to spend some of my time creating music and fulfilling my teenage dream of having an album of music available for people to listen to (and buy if they’re so inclined) – FOR THE 8TH TIME!
