We reach the final part of the Making of an Album special presentation that Cosmic Bos have been doing all year long. Here for your listening pleasure is Episode 5: Making an Album in a Month (Part 2)
Welcome to the 5th and final instalment of our Making of an Album series. Andy and Nick continue where they left off last time. The full diary will be published separately.
This is the final part of our year long presentation, and the continuation of last months episode, listen to that one to hear the first half of the diary and first 6 songs on the album we made in a month.
Huge shout out to Lights and Lines Record Label for putting on the competition, we (Cosmic Bos) have made loads of new musical contacts and friends as a result of the Album Writing Club and we are excited to see what happens next year ( Album Writing Club 2023! Whoop! Whoop! )
Follow us on Spotify - our podcast is there too.
Songs in this episode are:
Stop Saying 1984 to Make a Point
Here's Tom with the Weather (Bill Hicks Tribute)
Hurricane Came
Money Pwease
Quilt
Closed to the Public
All songs copyright Cosmic Bos 2022
Please like, share and subscribe
Here is the album on bandcamp should you wish to listen and maybe buy a copy
And check us out on YouTube, where video stuff happens and you can comment on it (please comment)
In classic Bos style - I present to you the next instalment in the Making of an Album Special Presentation - Episode 4: Making an Album in a Month (Part 1) direct to you from our podcast feed.
Or the YouTube link if you prefer
Welcome to the 4th instalment in our special presentation 'Making of an Album', where Andy and Nick break down the details on music making in the 2020's, and how easy it is to do now. So far they have covered writing, and now they are going to skip over all the technical stuff and just make an album in a month for you over the next two episodes of this special presentation. There is good reason for this, Nick and Andy are creative musicians that know how to use recording equipment, they are not qualified to teach anyone anything about these things, so rather then blag it, they have focused on the process of making an album as an experience rather then the finer details of recording.
Cosmic Bos Making of an Album Episode 4: Making an Album in a Month (Part 1)
For the month of May 2022 Cosmic Bos took on the 'Album in a Month' challenge put on by Lights and Lines Independent record label, and subsequently produced a 12 track album called '2 A.M, it's Mission Time', which is out now
Wisely, throughout the album in a month process, Andy kept a diary of what was going on, and the Brothers filmed all of the recording session so that ample video footage of the album creation existed. You can see some of this already in the video's we put out for 'Isle of Avalon', 'Money Pwease' and 'Whatever You Say It Is, It Isn't'.
This podcast represents the first half of both the album, and the diary kept for the month, and takes you through the first half of what we did. There will be an accompanying blog to this episode which will have more waffle about it should you wish to read more.
Part 2 coming next month.
Songs in this episode are :
Re:Mission
Catch a Clue
Bards for Hire
Isle of Avalon
Whatever You Say It Is, It Isn't
Patient Mystery
All songs copyright Cosmic Bos 2022
So as promised, this blog contains the links mentioned in the episode, this is that blog, the one you are reading right this second right here right now I tell you what!
Here is F'in Lucky C' by Oxynucid & Vocalizer - still up on youtube even given its umm, questionable language. Not for the faint hearted.
As mentioned in the podcast, we wrote a song 'Step too Far' that is in the same ball park as this old Vocalizer song from back in the long long ago. We will get around to recording it at some point, but it is not priority on our list at the moment.
Also mentioned was my (Andy's) old band The Little Man, which is still out there in the internet, here is the Spotify link that was promised.
Next Month will be Episode 5, Part 2 of the Making an album in a month, but there will be plenty more Cosmic Bos shenanigans before that I can promise you.
Peace and infinite love
Cosmic Bos
You can find the album on bandcamp and other places, but bandcamp is good for us as artists because you can actually support us (unlike Spotify etc.)
Cosmic Bos march onwards with the third episode in the Making of an Album series, this time discussing alternative music creating/writing techniques.
Welcome to Episode 3 of our Making of an Album series
For this episode, Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) take you through a selection of alternative writing techniques, discussing The Beatles contribution to the world of songwriting, in particular their later more experimental work, to the general explosion of alternative techniques of music creation that came about in the 1960's.
After that, Cosmic Bos turn their attention to their own writing techniques, breaking down the improvisation process, following the trajectory of 'Rainbow Appearing', a song improvised last year in the 3rd full improvisation session (Summadelica), through to it's development for live performance and preparing the song to be an album contender.
After improvisation comes improv-revisation, the basis of the first two seasons of Cosmic Bos Improv Music Podcast, where the music was improvised and then revised in the edit. The boys discuss this and play an example song 'Hold Me in Slow Motion'.
After Improv-revisation comes Improv Squared, Cosmic Bos's current alternative writing technique, essentially a mash up of improvisation and improv-revisation. Nick and Andy talk you through this with an example song 'Badder Decisions' from their Improv Squared album - Petit Champignon de Lumiere
To conclude the episode, Nick and Andy put together a brand new improv squared song called 'The More You Learn, The Less You Know', a video for which will be available in the another blog.
The Instrumental version of 'The More You Learn, The Less You Know' will be available on bandcamp for you to come up with you own vocals to if you so please.
If you wish to participate in future Improv Squared shenanigans please email us at cosmicbos@gmail.com
Please like, share, comment and subscribe
Peace and Infinite Love
Cosmic Bos
P.S - Here is the YouTube link to the episode, should you not like the above direct podcast link.
Welcome to episode 2 of our Making of an Album series, this time (as you already know from having read the title of this blog) we tackle song writing, in particular, traditional song writing techniques.
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Album artwork by Dayne Howcroft
Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) collectively have several hundred songs to their names, and here they breakdown the fundamentals of songwriting, examining structure and form, before writing a song in front of your very ears.
Visited several times throughout the episode, Nick and Andy sat over two sessions and wrote a song from start to finish. Here we try to show you the creative process in its raw state.
Nick and Andy also talk about the history of songwriting, as well as their own personal histories of songwriting, including several examples from their songbooks.
The first proper song you hear in this episode is Astral Underwear, a song that Cosmic Bos created using their new musical construction method, Improv Squared (More on this in the next episode).
In the middle of the episode you are treated to two songs from Andy and Nicks songbooks.
Love Defined is by Andy Jackson and is about his wife
Spontaneous Plan is by Nick Jackson and is about his wife
Both songs are available on Cosmic Bos From the Songbook (2020), and right here in youtube form too
Email cosmicbos@gmail.com with your favourite wife
The episode concludes with our other double A side single 'Forever Bruised', which is acoustically written music by Andy and Nick over a haunting poem by Dayne Howcroft.
This was a rollercoaster ride to make, and we loved it, hopefully there is something useful and insightful about our ramblings about writing songs, and we also hope that we have demystified the process a bit, and shown how really anyone could write songs if it was what they wanted to do.
If you want to get involved in our musical shenanigans drop us an email at cosmicbos@gmail.com
We also really appreciate feedback, and would love to hear your own songwriting stories, comment on this post or better yet, comment on the youtube video version of this episode so we can all share the musical love.
Welcome to the first episode of our limited series 'Making of an Album'
How does one make an album?
That is the question at the heart of this special podcast presentation, and Nick & Andy from Cosmic Bos are going to break it down for you, from writing the songs, to demo stage, full recording and producing, before tackling making music videos and finally releasing the finished album.
It will hopefully be a wonderful experience for all, and we shall learn along the journey together.
What qualifies you to be doing this Making of an Album series? I've never heard of you!
A fine question indeed, and true, that Cosmic Bos is not exactly a well known musical outfit, but in our defence, we have been making music for a long time, with over 20 albums of improvised/revised music available and several other proper albums sprinkled through our past.
Go on then, tell us about Cosmic Bos.
Cosmic Bos came into existence back in 2016, and we released our debut album '7 Billion' in 2017, which has been followed by 3 Seasons of Improvised music podcasting.
In 2021 Cosmic Bos released 'Virtual Normality' EP, a 5 track proper record, that was designed as the taster for this very Album of a Making podcast project.
So as you can see, we have made a lot of music, which qualifies us to appoint ourselves as qualified to make a podcast about making an album. Ultimately the measure of success of aforementioned project is an actual album existing at the end of it all, which, we confidently think there will be, also, Cosmic Bos is not affiliated with any record labels, so our interest in making an album is legitimately about Making a GOOD album of real music, not a product for lining already overlined pockets.
All music featured in this podcast was made by Cosmic Bos and is available to hear or if you can afford it, buy, at all good online musical stores.
Tracklist for Episode 1
Faded Memories
Take it Easier (from 'Virtual Normality' EP)
Ride Another Wave (from 'Virtual Normality' EP)
Where the Warp-zones Are (from '7 Billion')
Let's Go Dancing (from 'Ep.14: Utopia in a Cornucopia')
Ensemble Story
Both Faded Memories & Ensemble Story come from our upcoming new Improv(squared) album and are both available now.
Here's a Spotify player for convenient listening needs.
Check out the videos for our double A side singles in our podcast feed and on our youtube (or instagram if that's your thang)
We hope you have found this informative and interesting, as the series progresses we will delve into much greater depth on all the in's and out's of album construction, and hopefully we will learn a thing or two on the journey. It's exciting and fills the existential crisis hole that forever questions if we are all just living in a simulation that was literally turned on only twenty minutes ago, and all our memories are merely loaded in code, and our hopes and dreams are just glitches in a system that teeters on collapse under it's own weight at any given moment. Ahem.
Peace and infinite love
Cosmic Bos
P.s - can you leave our podcast a review on your preferred podcast consumption device, it really helps us out. Love ya.
