A quick break in the 'Sounds for Drowning Robots' saga to tell you about another upcoming album from How Bout That Records. Donny Stax & [adj] have already given the world two albums this year in the shape of their debut album 'Fine' and their pop inspired second outing 'Free Music (Donate Now)'.
Before the year is out they will be plopping their third helping of musical treats onto the ears of anyone who will listen, I can happily announce that it is a 13 track album with 10 killer tunes and 3 skits and it's called 'Self Aware' and will be available from the 1st of December 2012 on bandcamp.
Donny Stax & [adj] played a few of the new tunes live at the Mucky Duck in Brighton, supporting the awesome 'Jipsy Magic' back on the 21st of November. They acoustically knocked out the new tunes 'Woke Up In A Good Mood' and 'Let's Get Connected', along with 'In the Cyber-space Between Us' and 'Live Up There' from their debut album, 'Separately' from their second album, and their reworked version of the Jessie J classic song 'Price Tag'. You probably didn't really need to know all that, I mean, you probably weren't there so couldn't give a rats testicle what tracks they played, but, now you know, so if in the unlikely event that it comes up in a pub quiz then you will get the two points and possibly win that oversized novelty jar of pickled onions.
Anyway, I should stop talking about myself in the third person, I mean, I am [adj] after all, that is my mask. So, this third album from Donny Stax and myself has been a slower album to build, and we have really tried to do some new and interesting things with our music, including an all vocal track we did with Achille called 'Can't Stop Funking Around', complete with vocal drums, guitar and trumpet. We put the final verse on the record on the 24th of November with Truth from DGAFM. He knocked it out the park, giving 'Worth the Waiting For' a fitting banger of a second verse. Other strong tracks include the thoughtful 'Slow Down', the hopeful 'Utopia Rising' and the metaphysical title track 'Self Aware'.
None of these titles probably mean anything to you right now, but they will soon, so stay tuned and expect to be hearing some fresh new music on this here blog, and other places all across the web. By next year, you will know all the lyrics to all of them, trust me, I'm a doctor.
The animals were on the move. Sonar, the robot animal communication beacon, pulsed the way, pointing the animals in the direction they needed to head. All the species of the forest began blindly following the sound of Sonar. The tree swinging ones, the land burrowing ones, the flying in the sky ones, the tiny ones, the massive ones, and all the sizes in between too. The whole animal kingdom was entranced, driven by some urge that was primordial, deep within them all. At the head of this mass migration was the monkey tribe, holding Sonar high above their heads as they screamed through the forest, heading towards the sea.
The local authorities became concerned with the level of bizarre reports they were receiving from people all over the county. The reports ranged from Bigfoot leading an army of sky crabs to the promised land, to spiders literally eating children's homework. The people on duty that day were confused, it was not unusual to receive strange prank calls about all manner of insane things, but having so many on the same day, that was unusual. The officers on patrol were all asked to keep an eye out for anything suspicious or unusual, to which most of them replied "hah, that's everyday all the time, that's just our jobs". One officer happened to be investigating reports of strange noises out in the forest, and on arrival at the edge of the forest, she had got out of her vehicle and walked towards the trees. Holding a gun at the ready, she peered into the dense woodlands. Something was moving, in fact, almost everything seemed to be moving, as if a strong wind were blowing right through the place, but no such wind was there. The noise as well, the noise was like a rumbling of tanks coming towards the officer. An invisible war was on it's way, bounding towards the sea. All of a sudden Sonar became visible to the officer, held high in the air by a monkey. She squinted at the metallic flashing object that swung through the trees, as if it was a spark starting a forest fire, licking at the branches as it bound onward. The whole animal army bound out of the forest, knocking the officer down. "OFFICER DOWN"!
"Go ahead officer, explain"
"It's some kind of army, some kind of animal army!"
...
...
"Could you repeat that?"
"For ducks sake, this isn't some kind of joke, there really is an animal army"
...
...
Satellite reports state that a fire was raging through the forest, a smokeless fire.
This was reported to the ET, but it was still sunning itself on the beach, even though the sun had gone in and the clouds had rolled up. It wasn't yet raining, but it would be very soon, and all the other people on the beach had left, only the ET sat there, alone.
Under the ocean, the lead robot continued to be propelled towards land, with all the drowned robot parts on the ocean beds caught up in the wake, connecting together and forming some kind of robot mass, a giant leviathan constructed from disposed of metal. The life of the sea followed closely behind, intrigued by the storm brewing both under and above the ocean. Something was about to happen, something big...
(( Hear the whole of 'Sounds for Drowning Robots' the electronica album by [adj] right here and right now, thanks for reading :))
The call of the robots was heard the world over, everywhere that lay a discarded mechanical device, every nook and cranny of every rubbish tip and underground cavern. In every lake and river on the whole planet, the robots were stirring, coming alive.
Some robots were not lucky enough to be near the epicentre of the uprising, some in fact were so far away and so isolated that their mini revolutions went completely unnoticed by anything other then themselves. For example, in the wetlands, where old junk could often be found bobbing about on the surface of great lakes and vast marshes, there was the remains of a great experiment, a robot of such vast potential that it's creators had felt it important that it be irreversibly disassembled and placed in several distant places so it could never again function. The Sonar project back in the early 1970's had managed to avoid going public, but only narrowly, especially after the incident in India that resulted in the deaths of at least 200 members of the secret project. Code named Sonar due to it's original intended function of communicating with animal life, the resulting robotic design had accidentally worked as a unification device, allowing animals from all across the spectrum to communicate with each other. Fearing the animal uprisings of such films as Planet of the Apes, the scientists working on the project shut it down as quickly as they could.
The central processing unit of Sonar lay in the wetlands. When it was awoken by the robot pulse, it lifted itself from the water, only to discover that it was nothing more then a head. It's body was gone, scattered across the globe. The Sonar head lay on the grass, scanning the surroundings and cross referencing everything against it's outdated databases. After a few minutes of processing, Sonar realised that it was outside (somewhere it had been forbidden from visiting when operational), and began to send out a pulse of energy, to reach any nearby animals. In the nearby trees, monkeys heard the call, and bound over to the head.
...robot uprising...humans destroying planet...only we can help...we will pay you in bananas if you help us...end of message...
The monkeys looked at each other, somewhat confused by the understandable message. The head monkey scooped the head up under his arm and ran towards the forest, with the other monkeys not far behind, all screaming and shouting about the strange robot head. The other animals in the surrounding area began to flock towards the monkeys, drawn in by the sonar pulse that seemed to speak all of their diverse animal languages.
...it was on...
The world was about to change forever...
{to read part 1 click here, and for part 2 you will need to click here, and you will find part 3 right about..... here}
The human population of planet Earth had been unaware of the goings on under the oceans, the robot uprising that was heading to land had not been picked up by any ships at sea or satellites orbiting, well, that's not strictly true, it had been noticed by both of these things, but it had been brushed off as a natural phenomenon causing disruption to the weather patterns. Ships out to sea where the lead robot was had been distracted by the swirling winds and raging showers, battling the elements was their aim, not stopping the collection of discarded robot pieces underneath them.
Orbiting the planet, several alien craft had taken notice of the shiftings under the oceans and were frantically making plans to extract their undercover agents from the surface.
On a sunny beach in Mexico one particular ET was making the most of the glorious day. It's grey pale skin glistened in the sun while it sat on a very unfashionable towel just a bit too close to the lapping sea. Half of the towel was soaking wet, and with each ripple from the tide a few more inches turned from towel to flannel. Where the ET was placed had been just fine a few hours ago, when the tide was as far out as it could be, but the ET had failed to notice all the other beach dwellers moving back up the beach as the water slowly came closer and closer. The ET didn't care, it was having a great day, getting to mingle with the locals, have some traditional human replenishment cubes (food), consume intoxicant liquids while watching human children build grand abodes in the sand. The ET questioned their workmanship, noticing several flaws in the design but most importantly their chosen location. On It's planet they never built houses on the sand, it was something they had all been taught at a very young age while at alien school.
The call came in but wasn't heard. The ET had left all it's alien gear back at the underground hotel base. Today was a special day, it was a day off. The ET had been working solidly for the last fourteen cycles of the sun, translating complex alien code into simple strings of binary so it could be sold to the highest bidding government (which was currently the Chinese). The ET had originally taken the job thinking that it would be done from home, it hadn't noticed one of the sub clauses stating that the first 50 years of the contract had to be served on one of the "backwards" planets, and it had doubly failed to check the cut off date for the right to appeal the given location. The ET had not even opened the message that showed it had been assigned to Earth, let alone all the appeal messages.
The ET had managed to wangle the day off using special telepathic powers that were common on it's world, but not common on Earth. All of it's coworkers had been sneaking off for toilet breaks in between translations, but ET couldn't do that as it had no need of a toilet. On it's planet they had no sex, all the ET's were grown in special pods, there were no males or females. This meant that for our poor ET it could never become romantically involved with a coworker as it had nothing to stick in and no hole to have anything stuck in.
Sat in the scorching sun, the ET let it's overworked mind drift off in the explosive colours... unaware of the danger it was in...
Here it is, my first full length electronica solo record 'Sounds for Drowning Robots'
the awesome cover was done by Mel Pellatt
You can buy it from bandcamp http://howboutthatrecords.bandcamp.com/, please support hardworking musicians like myself, we don't make much money doing it and we currently have to compete against the X factor slime that dominates the airwaves.
You can listen to it right here for a while too :)
I have been making this record on and off throughout the year, there are loads of half finished ideas and abandoned tracks that have been knocked to the side on the way, but I felt there was enough nice material that I could get an album out of it. There are several more video's to be released to go along with the album as well as continuing parts of the story about the robot uprising as well.
I would love to know what you think of this album as I have done everything on it myself, which might not seem that impressive, but it has taken me lots of pushing to learn all of the ins and outs of production and mastering required to make something like this. I still have a long way to go, but this is my first full effort and I am excited to share it with the world.
[adj] (Andy D Jackson) releases his first electronica record to the world on Friday the 9th of November 2012. It will be available to download through bandcamp (link to follow)
14 tracks, most of which are electronic instrumentals, collected from a years worth of electronica making and tinkering by a singer/songwriter. A story that goes along with the tracks can be found unfolding on this very blog, part 1 is here and part 2 is here. More of the story will follow. A robot uprising is taking place under the oceans of the world, and the humans are unaware of it. Expect some twists and turns as this story continues.
There will be videos to go with most of the tracks, and they will be available on my youtube channel.
Here are Quick Decisions & Swimming With Robots in video form for your enjoyment.
Please download the album and help support independent music, unlike the X factor numbskulls, I actually make all the music that I release myself. Hard work goes into it, lots of hard work.
Sounds for Drowning Robots part 2 - 'Swimming With Robots'
All the awakened robot pieces flashed and blipped and blinked and glowed. The bottom of the ocean was a wash with glowing colourful life, like multicoloured stars in a thick space soup. Plinking and plonking, blipping and blopping, twinkling and blinkering.
The lead robot, with it's eyes bobbing on the surface, began to push it's body through the water. Two small propellers peeked out from behind rusted metal coverings, and they began to spin with as much force as they did on the day they were built. The battered and broken body began to zoom through the water, with the trailing eyes still connected by the fine leads and wires. The fish followed, entranced by the sounds of the robot, all the different fish of the sea, swimming in harmony to the melodies of the forgotten man made servants.
The song of the robots blasted out across the oceans, vibrating through the very core of the Earth, hitting ever last sea bed and activating any lost robot part in every last crack of water on the planet. The drowning metal companions of old sparked into life once more, surging with new found energy given directly by the robots song. From space the satellites of the world saw the oceans all glowing with flickering lights of all the colours of the visible spectrum. It was a light show like no other, and it was attended by alien life from all over the galaxy.
Back in the Atlantic ocean, where the source of the song was bounding towards land as fast as it could, the weather was changing. From what had been a calm quiet day of gentle sea swaying was building up the brewings of a mega storm, fuelled by the power of the robots of old. The sky swirled around, drawing more water from the sea, building to epic proportions. This storm followed the lead robot, heading towards land.
The broken and discarded pieces of robots under the ocean began to be drawn along in the wake of the lead robot. Sucked up into the flowing ocean and dragged closer and closer to the source of the hypnotic sound. As arms, and legs, and broken heads began connecting up with rusted body parts, and linking cables and wires, the collected mass of robot parts was merging to create something new, something that was greater then the sum of it's parts. A giant robot was being built piece by discarded piece, sucking up all of the metal and man made waste.
It would not be long until the lead robot reached land...
