Secret Transmission, or How It Took Thirteen Years to Fully Release an Album

I thought maybe we owed you a bit of an explanation for why it's taken quite so long to get Transmission on to all the major streaming and download sites. I'm not sure it's a full story, but in order to get anywhere near to understanding, you need to know a bit of history - both ours and that of self-released online music.

As you might have gathered from this blog already, we started making music way back in 1992, and spent the rest of that decade releasing our own albums and EPs on cassette. You're unlikely to ever hear any of that, by the way, as the vast majority is so terrible that listening to it carries a sentence of imprisonment in many countries.

Where things start to get interesting is around 2001, when we released our fifth album Ephemeris. Self-released on CD, we were rather proud of it at the time, so it was followed in quick succession by Zero (2002), Empires (2003), and Dusk (2006). During this period, we played around initially with online snippets of songs, and later full tracks, like 2002's Blind Youth, which you can still hear on Soundcloud here.

With Dusk, we finally saw some success. This was the MySpace era, of course, so we released a number of tracks there, as well as on now-defunct free download sites such as Unsigned.com, MP3 Unsigned, and MP3 Lizard. We built up a decent fanbase and decided to release something on an actual music platform, iTunes. So, we picked a few of the better tracks from Dusk and its singles, including one exclusive track, and put together the iDusk EP, which came out right at the end of the Dusk project in summer 2008.

Our next album Transmission came along after a bit of a pause, in 2011, and by then, self-released music was a lot more widespread, but the pricing model wasn't entirely friendly. Releasing a single such as Better Days wasn't too expensive, but putting the album online didn't seem worthwhile. We ended up with four singles on the main streaming music platforms - some of them are still there - and felt that we could redirect potential album listeners to Bandcamp instead. It worked reasonably well, for a while.

Of course, album number ten has since eluded us, and we've been pretty busy with other things, so we haven't revisited this as often as we should have. Back in about 2010, we had already been sharing our name with an up-and-coming Iranian band, and had cohabited fairly well - but in about 2017, another Hypernova have appeared and frustratingly, some of the streaming platforms have allowed them to take our profiles - and our listeners. Not that this is the fault of any of the other Hypernovae, of course - just a silly flaw in the way that music streaming works.

Some time around then, we did look a few times at trying to get a CD version of Transmission into the wild, but that never quite happened. For a while, we let it disappear into the wilderness - which we shouldn't have, and we're very sorry, and we'll try not to let that happen again.

Please be patient with us as we spin back up. We're intending to revisit the Transmission singles in some form early in 2025, but first we have a bit of tidying to do, trying to make sure that the main streaming platforms have our releases in the same place and that we're in control of what's happening. For now, please continue to enjoy Transmission - and any other releases that you may be enjoying - on your favourite streaming platform.

The year we forgot to write anything

Well, I started writing a post, and then forgot to finish it in time to post it. Apologies for the delay - normal service will be resumed; we're just not quite sure when yet. Things have, admittedly, been a little quiet recently. I was just on the verge of writing a big long post with all the major headlines in it, but then I thought to myself, why not split it out into multiple posts? That way it looks as though we're actually doing something!

So keep an eye out for the major headlines as of early 2016 over the next couple of weeks...

Infrequently Asked Questions

We dug this out from our archives - it appeared on our website in around 2008.

1. Do you play live? 

As a general rule, no. There is no particular reason for this, but we live a very long way apart these days, doing most of our songwriting using pigeons. This makes rehearsals rather difficult, and very long. Experiments using baked bean cans and pieces of string are ongoing, but apparently we need to eat the beans first, and we're worried about flatulence. Right: an early gig. We changed our sound a little for our fifth album Ephemeris. [The image to which this refers is unfortunately now lost.]

2. Do you write all your own songs?

Yes. We hope so, anyway.

3. Do you do cover versions?

See above. After a number of early experiments, which were particularly unsuccessful (we once recorded an album of hymns, and that's not a joke), we decided to steer clear for the forseeable future. 

It's not particularly that we think our songs are better than everyone else's: we just think that there needs to be a very good reason for doing other people's songs, and we haven't thought of one yet.

4. What equipment do you use? 

Obviously you're having trouble using the menu on the left hand side, so here's a direct link to our equipment list. You'll find it helps if you click on it. [See the separate blog post for the most recent information.]

5. How long have you been making music? 

The truthful answer is: we can't really remember. Officially, we started in 1992, when we recorded our first album Schizophrenia by pointing two tape recorders at each other; playing keyboards and singing badly; and banging things together. Now, fifteen years later, we have moved on to recording albums by plugging two computers into each other; programming synths and singing badly; and banging things together. Well, we never claimed to be innovative.

When we originally recorded Schizophrenia, we had a different name, and several of our songs were written by taking other people's songs, and running them between the tape recorders so many times that you could no longer hear the original. This meant that what you could hear was mainly background noise, with the occasional sound of somebody trying to sing here and there. Fortunately, the original tapes from 1992 have long since been lost, but many of our recordings from the early 90s still exist. And they're every bit as bad as you might expect.

We started calling ourselves Hypernova in 1995, and spent the next four years going back to re-record the "classics", plus recording three more albums, Nemesis; Prophecies and Odyssey. We did this entirely for our own amusement, which is probably a good thing, as there's not much worth listening to on any of them.

After that, we decided to start doing proper music, and so newly armed with some decent songs and equipment, we recorded a daft EP of spare songs called Behind the Waterfall and then a full album called Ephemeris. It's quite good actually, even if the title isn't actually a word. Since then, we've done another album every couple of years, and you can find more information about that over there.

6. Which comes first, the words or the music? 

We thought it was the chicken. It depends, usually Rollo writes words and then Simon sets them to music, mutilates them and then sends them back for re-writing, but there have been quite a few occassions when the music came first.

7. What are you doing next? 

This is obviously one of those questions which will need updating from time to time, but the answer in early 2007 is as follows, roughly in the following order:

• Some more singles - we expect there will be three or four off Dusk, each with extra tracks and remixes, and nice artwork. [Four singles were released during 2007, with an EP the following year. The artwork was quite nice.]
• A compilation - this might not actually happen, but we had a vague idea of putting out an album with new versions of our favourite old tracks, with some remixes and exclusive stuff. [We still keep talking about this, but as of now still haven't got around to it.]
• The next album - writing is going well, and if it continues the way it has been going, it will probably be released early in 2008. If it doesn't, it will probably be three or four years again. [No kidding. Transmission was finally released in mid-2011.]

I've got some more questions... 

Good. It's nice to see you taking an interest. You could either keep them to yourself, or email them to us here. [Our email address is now shown on our main website, right at the bottom.]

2014

Hello! Our compliments of the season, or something... hopefully you enjoyed 2013 as much as we did.

We've had a pretty busy year. We finally polished off the tail end of our 2011 album Transmission with the last single Blood, Sweat and Tears, and also a bonus remix EP called Intermission. We also took a trip back to 2006 to reissue our eighth album Dusk in its original form, and now accompanied by a bonus compilation album, Dusk Archive, including the tracks from all five singles. There's more information about all that on our website.

If you've been paying attention to this blog, you'll have seen the commentaries and lyrics we've added for each of the tracks on the album:

1. Almost
2. Golden Wheel
3. Eyeballing
4. Walk with Me
5. Better Days
6. False Dawn
7. Untouchable
8. Blood, Sweat and Tears
9. Distant Moon
10. Here Comes the Summertime
11. I'll Give You Electro
12. Without Life

Those commentaries will continue over the coming months, with a detailed look at the twelve b-sides which we've released since 2011.

If you're wondering what we're up to... well, we're currently in the studio, working on tracks for what will hopefully one day become our tenth album. Although actually recently we seem to have spent more time working on remastering our older albums for potential future releases, which has made for quite a pleasant diversion. Seemingly we used to be quite good.

So it looks as though 2014 might continue to be busy for us, although we might not actually have much to show for it for a little while yet...

A list of our gear

Another thing that was lost from our website when we updated it recently was this rather long list of equipment. We've updated it for the 21st century, because it was a little on the old side.

The date is an approximation of when we acquired it. As we said at the time, the list is long, and it definitely isn't comprehensive. It probably isn't very interesting either, but here goes...

• Ukulele - Musical Instrument, 2012. Is it a souvenir or a serious musical instrument? It's difficult to know, but it is fun.
• Korg Monotron - Synthesiser, 2012. Like a Stylophone, only not quite as silly.
• Korg iElectribe - Software, 2011. Great if you want to make some drum and bass or UK Garage of a Sunday afternoon.
• Korg iMS-20 - Software, 2011. Used to make silly noises, including several of the sounds on the Funnelweb mix of Golden Wheel.
• Apple GarageBand for iPad - Software, 2011. Rollo uses this as a general sketchpad and sounding board for ideas.
• Apple iPad 2 - Computer, 2011. Good for messing with when "on the road".
• Chimera Synthesis BC9 - Synthesiser, 2010. Second and last purchase from the now defunct bedroom company. Great for making very silly noises.
• Chimera Synthesis BC16 - Synthesiser, 2009. It took about a year to arrive, but it was worth it. If only I could work out how to use it
• mda DX10 - Software Synthesiser, 2009. DX-10 clone
• TAL Bassline - Software Synthesiser, 2009. Fun software synth
• TAL Elek7ro - Software Synthesiser, 2009. Fun software synth
• TAL U-No-62 - Software Synthesiser, 2009. Another nice Juno clone
• mda JX10 - Software Synthesiser, 2009. Another clone
• mda Piano - Software Synthesiser, 2009. Piano clone
• NUSofting daHornet - Software Synthesiser, 2009. Amazing Wasp clone, used to make lots of ridiculous noises on Transmission era tracks.
• Apple Intel iMac - Computer, 2008. Used by Rollo for everything from 2008 onwards.
• Paia Theremin - Other Instrument, 2008. Kit theremin which Rollo hasn't got round to finishing yet.
• Soundcraft Compact 10 - Mixer, 2008. Used from The End onwards for pretty much all Rollo's vocal recording and sampling.
• TAL U-No-60 - Software Synthesiser, 2008. Nice Juno clone
• TAL Vintager2 - Software Synthesiser, 2008. Nice SH-101 clone
• Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 - Software, 2008. Not quite as good as its predecessors, but entirely usable.
• AKG Perception 100 - Microphone, 2008. Lovely warm-sounding microphone
• Evolution MK-??? - MIDI Controller, 2007. Another handy controller, bought in 2007. 
• Apple iMac G4 - Computer, 2007. Bought by Simon in 2007 and not yet broken, although the power board did die a couple of years ago. Originally came with a pirate copy of Ableton installed, but now running Logic Audio which is much better, and legal. 
• Korg MicroKorg - Synthesiser, 2005. Bought new (yes, we were surprised too) in 2005. Capable of some of the best sounds ever, and very twiddleable. 
• Korg NS5R - Synthesiser, 2005. Slightly dodgy 90s synth module which makes great MIDI and aeroplane noises. 
• Native Instruments Absynth - Software Synthesiser, 2004. Soft synth bought in 2004, which makes nice noises although we haven't used it for ages as this version only runs on Mac OS9.
• Native Instruments Pro-53 - Software Synthesiser, 2004. Soft synth widely used on Dusk. Again, we haven't used it for ages as this version only runs on Mac OS9.
• Apple Powerbook 3400 - Computer, 2004. Simon's second laptop, which broke in about 2008, delaying Transmission in the process. When it did finally break (by refusing to start up) it forced us to update our technology, which was no bad thing.
• Apple iBook Clamshell - Computer, 2004. Bought in 2004, and used by Rollo until about 2009. The hard drive makes slightly more noise than an average jet engine. 
• Novation A-Station - Synthesiser, 2003. Nice synth module. Used pretty much continuously and on every track on Dusk and almost every track on Transmission.
• Roland Electribe EA-1 - Synthesiser, 2003. A little box containing many very fat arpeggios, used and sampled regularly. 
• Alesis NanoSynth - Synthesiser, 2002. Box of noises used a lot around 2002-2003 for Empires. Not used so much now as the range of sounds is a bit limited.
• Korg Prophecy - Synthesiser, 2002. Monophonic, but a thing of beauty nonetheless. Used very regularly.
• Akai S-3000XL - Sampler, 2002. Less dodgy mid 90s sampler, bought in 2002. Connected to a Mac via a SCSI link. Used regularly until we finally discovered software samplers. 
• Acoustic Guitar - Musical Instrument, 2001. Used when writing Not a Million Miles and Golden Wheel.
• Akai S-01 - Sampler, 2001. Dodgy early 90s sampler, bought in London in early 2001, and used extensively until we upgraded
• FAT FB-383 Freebass - Synthesiser, 2001. 303 emulator, bought in early 2001. It makes 303 noises. We haven't used it a huge amount. It features on Closer to the Sun (7" version).
• Apple Powerbook 3800 - Computer, 2001. Bought in 2001, now in a cupboard gathering mould, and in rather more pieces than Apple originally intended.
• FAT Procoder PCP-330 - Vocoder, 2001. Complicated vocoder, which we used a few times before selling a few years ago.
• Korg Poly-800 - Synthesiser, 2000. Bought in early 2000. It makes fantastic string sounds and is still used regularly. Like the CZ, it also re-sets itself in protest when it gets lonely. You have to feed it the default patches via an audio message.
• Yamaha PSS-780 - Keyboard, 2000. Bought in Wales in mid 2000. Some of the keys still work. 
• Roland D-110 - Synthesiser, 2000. Bought in mid 2000, and used a couple of times since, mainly on a couple of Ephemeris tracks. We pretty much gave up on it because it (a) sounds awful and (b) is an absolute pigdog to program, so we sold it.
• Akai SG-01v - Synthesiser, 2000. Bought in summer 2000. The mainstay of the Ephemeris and Zero eras. It's a very handy little box because so many sounds are packed in it.
• Evolution MK-125 - MIDI Controller, 2000. Mini controller, not really used much, if at all.
• Roland Juno-106 - Synthesiser, 2000. A thing of beauty, bought in London, late 2000. I think that a few of the chips have gone with age, since it doesn't always like playing all of the notes that you tell it to. We still use it regularly.
• Apple Macintosh LC - Computer, 2000. Bought for £50 in 2000. Using a MIDI interface and some cheap software, we made a valiant attempt to make some music, but the memory kept running out.
• Apple Powerbook 1400 - Computer, 2000. Simon's first laptop, which he bought in 2000 and used until it died in 2002.
• Roland SH-101 - Synthesiser, 1999. Red. Bought and repaired in America in 1999. Fantastic for basses, particularly if you don't need them to be in tune with anything else. We used the onboard sequencer a couple of times before we finally entered the age of midi. The 101 is still used quite a bit and is particularly prominent on Heaven Only Knows and The Broken Generation. Unfortunately it now seems to have stopped working, so maybe one day we'll get both it and the Juno properly serviced and restored to their former glory.
• Acorn BBC Model B - Computer, 1999. Stopped working around 2002. We never actually used it for music, because it sounded dreadful, but we managed to get to level 22 on Chuckie Egg. 
• Viglen 286 - Computer, 1999. Never really worked properly, but was good for playing Reversi.
• Philips CD-780 - CD Recorder, 1999. Used extensively until about 2002, when we started doing everything on computers. It's in storage now, and I'm not clear whether it works any more.
• Tascam Porta-05 - Recording Device, 1998. Used from late 1998 until 2002, it served a very worthy purpose, until it fell apart, and all the tapes we'd made with it became pretty much useless. It was great fun though.
• Casio CZ-1000 - Synthesiser, 1998. Procured from a man in Wagga Wagga in 1998. It makes very good noises and is still used regularly, although it has the annoying habit of re-setting itself if it is abandoned for too long. This is solved by sticking a bent paper clip into one of its holes, but you should not try this with other objects without a responsible adult present.
• Yamaha PSS-460 - Keyboard, 1997. Also bought in 1997, and used whenever we wanted white noise effects. 
• Yamaha PSS-380 - Keyboard, 1997. Bought in 1997, and featured a couple of nice sounds, the likes of which none of our other synths produce. Still used every now and again, although we tend to sample it these days. Featured most recently on Signs of Life.
• Apple Macintosh Plus - Computer, 1993. We used HyperCard and APL68000 to make noises, but it would probably be unfair to call them music.
• Yamaha PSS-50 - Keyboard, 1993. Bought in about 1993 to replace the PSS-150, because it had temporarily stopped working. This model featured 100 sounds; 20 rhythms; and other features. We used it in the 1990s. 
• Yamaha PSS-150 - Keyboard, 1985. Bought some time in the early eighties; it has four preset sounds; four rhythms; and real programmable drum sounds, which, according to the manual, give all the excitement of being a real drummer. It also has a demo tune. And a headphone socket. And... no, that's everything. It stopped working at some point in the early 90s, but then Rollo soldered it back together again.

The quick guide to Transmission

The release of Intermission brings us at long last to the end of the Transmission project, which has been spawning singles for the last two and a half years.

You may be wondering why we kept flogging this poor horse. Well, it's been the gift that keeps on giving: We had a fairly large stack of tracks to release as b-sides and we kept doing remixes or having remixes offered to us. In all, there are remixes of eight tracks from the album, which is a record for us. The result was that the singles kept coming.

It's also given us a bit of time to work on some new material, which we hope you'll be able to hear fairly soon.

Just in case you've lost track of everything we've done (well, mainly to help us remember), here's the complete list of all the releases, together with where to find them and why you need them:

Better Days (Single) - 8 Apr 2011
The first single. Contains the exclusive songs The Broken Generation and Shattered Mirrors.

Transmission (Album) - 15 Aug 2011
The album, with twelve original tracks for your listening pleasure.

I'll Give You Electro (Single) - 31 Oct 2011
The second single. Contains a remixed version of I'll Give You Electro and three new songs that you'll never find anywhere else (probably): Dissolution, Weather the Storm and The Journey Here.

Remission (EP) - 19 Dec 2011
The first EP of remixes containing new versions of Eyeballing, I'll Give You Electro and False Dawn, along with the new track Sleepwalker. It's still available from Bandcamp as a free download, from the link above.

I'll Give You Electro II (Single) - 6 Feb 2012
The return of the second single. This time the lead track was the Imperfect Attitude Mix of I'll Give You Electro, to which we added the exclusive tracks These Four Walls and Black Earth.

Here Comes the Summertime - 29 Jun 2012
The third single, with two new versions of Here Comes the Summertime, and two new tracks: Homeward Bound and Words Come Easy.

Blood, Sweat and Tears (Single) - 31 Mar 2013
The fourth single, with new versions of Blood, Sweat and Tears, Golden Wheel and Better Days and a brand new track, Centuries Later.

Intermission (EP) - 29 Oct 2013
The second EP of remixes with new version of Almost, I'll Give You Electro, Golden Wheel and Here Comes the Summertime, along with a new track, Splinters.

The videos
And here are the videos that have been produced along the way. Why not make yourself a nice hot drink, sit down and enjoy*:
False Dawn (Animalogue Remix)
Better Days (Single Version)
I'll Give You Electro (Sappy's Elektrik Remix)
I'll Give You Electro (Single Version)
Blood, Sweat and Tears (Single Version)

Here Comes the Summertime (Single Version)
Eyeballing (Sappy's Treble Up Remix)
Golden Wheel (Sappy's Spinning Mix)
Here Comes the Summertime (Sappy's Lost Paradise Remix)
* you may also dance around waving your hands in the air at appropriate moments, if you wish to.

Our Biography

We recently did another clear out of our website, and each time we seem to end up with less content than the last time around. One of the things we lost was our biography, and so in the interest of posterity, here it is...

Our mission

We're not trying to change the world. We aren't seeking fame or fortune. We don't think we're very good...

But we enjoy trying to make our own music and do it entirely for our own entertainment.

Feedback is always welcome, whether you think we're any good or total rubbish. But we do ask that you let us know where you think we could improve, for example, "try the odd melody here and there," or "had you considered singing lessons?"

Who we are

Hypernova are an electronic duo originally from somewhere in Derbyshire, which is somewhere in the middle of the UK. We first tried making music at some point back in the eighties, but like everyone else, we weren't really very good. In the nineties, we recorded some albums, which still weren't very good.

Around the turn of the century, we turned things around, by starting to write some quite good songs. Since then, we've completed some more albums. We haven't done much recently as we've been busy, but there's new stuff on the way.

Currently based half in Hampshire and half in California, both of us have proper jobs, which is why we still haven't sold out and appeared on Top of the Pops. Well, that and the fact that they don't make it any more. Oh, and the fact that we've never been asked.

Things we like

Some artists and groups that we like are listed below.

Air - Alabama 3 - Alpinestars - Aphex Twin - Apollo Four Forty - Asana - Karl Bartos - Basement Jaxx - The Beatmasters - The Beloved - Bent - Binar - Björk - Bomb the Bass - BT - Camouflage - Chicane - Client - Conjure One - Daft Punk - Death in Vegas - Deep Dish - Deep Forest - Delerium - Depeche Mode - Dirty Vegas - Rob Dougan - Dragonette - Dubstar - Duran Duran - Dusted - Paul van Dyk - Echoboy - Electronic - Enigma - Erasure - Everything But the Girl - Faithless - Fluke - Front Line Assembly - Future Sound of London - Dave Gahan - Banco de Gaia - Goldfrapp - Gotan Project - The Grid - Groove Armada - Heaven 17 - Hot Chip - Jori Hulkkonen - The Human League - I Monster - Jean Michel Jarre - Joy Division - Kings Have Long Arms - Kings of Convenience - Kraftwerk - Ladytron - Leftfield - Lemon Jelly - Manu Chao - Massive Attack - Robert Miles - Mirwais - Moby - Mylo - Paul Nagle - New Order - Olive - One Giant Leap - OneTwo - The Orb - William Orbit - Orbital - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Erlend Øye - Pet Shop Boys - Andy Pickford - The Postal Service - Readymade FC - Recoil - Röyksopp - Saint Etienne - The Shamen - Luke Slater - Sparks - Rachel Stevens - Sugababes - Synthetik - Tears for Fears - Télépopmusik - Tiga - Ultravox - Vitalic - Way Out West - White Town - Wolfsheim - Richard X - Zero 7

Anyway, you get the idea.

When we're making music, we use Apple Macs running Cubase and occasionally Audacity and some audio software. We've also a pile of old synths, some Akai samplers; and some other bits and bobs. We mainly keep them locked up in the cupboard, because they're old fashioned and we don't know how to plug them in.

We also like pretentious foreign films; vintage British television; long and dull books; and jigsaw puzzles. Between us, we speak a little English; French; German; Italian; Spanish; Russian; Uzbekh; and Tamagotchi.

September Update

It's September, which must mean it's time for a quick update.

I hope you don't feel as though we've been neglecting you recently? We did release the third proper (sixth overall) single from our album Transmission, led by a track entitled Blood, Sweat and Tears back in March this year, in case you didn't notice.

Then in July we reissued our 2006 album Dusk, although admittedly this didn't require an awful lot of effort on our part beyond pressing the "upload" button.

What did require a little more effort was the simultaneous reissue of all the tracks from the Dusk singles, on an album known as Dusk Archive, including 24 tracks and brand new artwork and commentary.

So what's next? Well, we have a couple of remixes and bonus tracks from Transmission left over, which we're trying to get finished and polished off. Quite what this will end up being remains to be seen - perhaps it will be another remix EP; perhaps it will be a single; perhaps it will be nothing at all! We're intending to work through these questions and figure something out soon.

Then we'll start work in earnest on what might one day become our tenth album! We've got a healthy pile of tracks to choose from, and we're in no particular rush, but nevertheless we're hoping to unleash something upon you soon.

In the studio...

... working on new tracks with our producer. Now we know why the Juno has ever fewer slider caps.

The return of the commentaries

Merry Christmas!

Well, this has been a funny year, hasn't it? Having managed to get very much back onto the wagon last year with our ninth album Transmission, we kicked off 2012 with a proper reissue of our single I'll Give You Electro, backed up by two of our favourite b-sides. After a rather long gestation, the third proper single from the album Here Comes the Summertime followed in May, with a choice of mini and maxi formats.

We had hoped to finish this album off for good this year with a final single, but due to other commitments we haven't quite managed it yet, but we've been working hard whenever we had the time on extra bonus tracks and remixes for the next single, and so it will have to follow early in 2013.

This album continues to do well, although we long ago gave up the idea of making any money from it. Opening single Better Days has now been listened to nearly as many times as our Dusk singles from the heady days of MySpace. The videos are doing pretty well, too. I still want to see if we can get the album onto some kind of physical format, and maybe reissue the last one too, but that can all wait till next year. What's the rush?

As Simon noted at the time, we celebrated our twentieth anniversary of music making this autumn. It's been a long, and largely undocumented journey, and we managed a few pretty good songs along the road. One day we might even work out a way for you to hear some of them. But in the meantime, we hope you've enjoyed Transmission as much as we enjoyed making it.

If you want to read a little about the genesis of some of the songs, I've been busy writing a series of posts commenting about each of the tracks on the album, which we'll publish every Saturday starting in the New Year. Stay tuned!

Looking in both directions

It's a bit late for a 2011 retrospective, but then again, why not? We were both away over the Christmas period, so here's your slightly delayed entry...

All round, we think we had a Very Good Year. We finally released our ninth album Transmission, and managed to squeeze out a further six b-sides and a healthy handful of remixes on the singles Better Days, I'll Give You Electro and Remission. We've learnt a lot, particularly from the wonderful remixes which Sappy was kind enough to do for us towards the end of the year. We've also re-recorded some old tracks for our own amusement, which may one day see the light of day. Finally, if that weren't enough, we started work on four brand new tracks which we're saving for our next album.

After 2010, 2009 and 2008 being largely quiet, that's a lot of stuff that we've done there.

We've already kicked off 2012 with I'll Give You Electro II, and we're intending to follow that with another single soon. We're currently working on three or four b-sides and we've got another four or five remixes we're playing with too. At the same time we're thinking about what would be on a Transmission "special edition" if it happened, working out how to open up more of our back catalogue to the wider world, and toying with the visual medium too.

But more on all of that to come. Thanks to everyone who has supported or helped us in the last few months. Happy new year!

Normal service

This is an important announcement. Pay attention at the back.

We are currently in the middle of mixing our new album. There, I said it.

Current plan is to roll out a single fairly soon, containing a couple of our favourite tracks and probably a couple of others that display what we've been up to recently. We'll probably put it on iTunes or something.

Then there will be a new album, I imagine some time in the new year, and that will have some stuff on it.

Nothing very specific at the moment, I'll admit. I'll try and update every week or so, including a detailed look at how the new stuff might end up sounding. Anyway, this is why our updates have been intermittent recently. In case you were wondering.

Things That Have Happened

Our last post was A Very Long Time Ago. That would be a good song title. Unless someone steals it first. I remember a very funny interview with Meat Loaf once, where he was complaining about how he had announced the title of one of the songs for his next album, and then somebody stole it. I can't actually imagine why anyone other than him would write a song with more words in the title than the song itself, but apparently it's a real problem for people like him.

Where was I? Oh yes. I think maybe I'm getting old, which would probably explain why I keep forgetting things. At the very least, it would explain what happened to my hair. And my teeth.

A lot of things have happened in the last year. One of these was that I turned 30, which was a bit of a non-event as it turns out, and we haven't written any songs about it.

We haven't written many songs at all, actually, but this is definitely something we are trying to remedy. As we've described many times before, we effectively have an album's worth of material which isn't a million miles/years away from being completed, but never quite seems to get there.

The old website mysteriously expired, so we started a new one. Why not go and have a look? It's almost finished.

I moved house. When we started working on Album Number Nine, I was based in Yorkshire, and Simon was based on the edge of Birmingham. Now it's even worse - he's in Southampton, and I'm in Los Angeles. The prospects of us ever playing live become ever more and more remote. Which is a shame, as I would very much like to do it one day.

These actually all sound like quite good excuses, but it's still frustrating that we haven't managed to finish anything for so long. Until now. We have the beginnings of a plan.

But that's all you're getting for now. I'll try and "blog" more often, and if I leave this post with an open ending, I might be more likely to write the next one. The suspense is for me, you see, not for you. That said, I could also leave this post with a half-finished sentence right at the

It's only words

I've just noticed that prior to my most recent post, I last posted in December. Before that, it was last August, and before that, May. That's really not very good, is it?

Vocal mixes are plodding along nicely - most of them are very nearly complete. There are a couple more that need a little bit more mixing doing. Then I've got to check the levels on everything, which might take a little bit of time. Finally I'll add some effects, and we're there!

"Words come so easy when there's nothing left to say..."

Something to look at

I just noticed the typo in Simon's post about "4 news songs". Well as you'll know if you read my notes about the songs, only one of them was actually about news. Which is probably a good thing; if someone were to write a song about this blog, it wouldn't be very interesting.

Normally at this point we would make all sort of vacuous promises about progress on the new material. The truth is, we haven't done a huge amount recently, but things may be changing...

To fill in the time until we release something new, I will try to post a message as regularly as I can. I can't promise much content, but, as the song which we almost wrote once went, anything is better than nothing.

Here's a picture what I done:


"And that's pretty much the way that I felt until today..."

The last post of 2008

Here we go again ...

(List of excuses deleted)

We've done about half a dozen rough mixes of tracks for our next album, with more to come as soon as is humanly possible.

Thank you once again to everyone that has downloaded our iDusk EP so far. The number of downloads has far exceeded our expectations... but then our expecations were very low (always aim low, that way you can't miss). The EP will almost certainly not be available indefinitely, so if you're interested, make sure you act sooner rather than later (early bird, worm and all that).

We wish you a Happy New Year if you happen to be using the same calendar as us. If not, we hope that the next time this planet passes some arbitrary point of your choosing along its orbit of the sun, you will have a happy next orbit, or something.

PS. The jetstream was too far south again this summer. Could someone please sort this out? Hello technical support? Thanks.

Neglect

Hello.

Well, we've been neglecting you a bit recently, haven't we? (Don't bother answering that; we already know the answer).

So here is some news...

Maybe you thought Dusk was over with, dead and buried? Frankly, so did we. It was an album which took about three years to write, record and mix. Then we prolonged the agony by releasing four singles / EPs / whatever you want to call them. And in the past, that might have been (if you'll pardon the pun) the end.

I'm not really at liberty to tell you what I'm talking about at the moment, so I'm just going to have to remain enigmatic. (Is that the right word? Probably not.) Anyway, suffice to say that Dusk still has one final trick up its sleeve. To celebrate this, the handful of remaining comments will make their way onto this very blog over the next couple of weeks, at the rate of one every day or two. I'm not going to make any promises about how regularly I can get them on here, but I'll do what I can.

That wasn't really news, and it didn't really say anything particularly informative, so here's something a bit more substantial...

The ninth album is really starting to take shape now. An impressive total (or should that be toll?) of 34 tracks are being considered, each in a varying place somewhere on the road between "vague musical idea" and "finished". Before you get too excited, here are some statistics:

• 2 are left over from Empires (yes, they are that bad)
• 2 are left over from Dusk, and are completed (but possibly not very good)
• 2 are left over from Dusk, but the vocals haven't been mixed yet (these two are OK, actually)
  
• 2 are left over from Dusk, but I haven't finished recording the vocals yet (one of them is quite good)
  
• 4 are left over from Dusk, and haven't quite got full sets of lyrics yet (none of them are any good)
  
• 1 is complete, but I want to re-record the vocal because it's not very good (yes, we now have some kind of quality checking procedure*)
• 1 is a song by someone else, which probably won't get released properly anywhere (I'm not sure why I'm telling you about it, actually)
• 1 is a song by Simon, for which he's hopefully going to take full responsibility
  
• 9 have been recorded, but the vocals haven't been mixed yet
• 8 don't yet have any kind of lyrics recorded for them
• 2 don't have any kind of words yet (or rather, they do have some kind of words, just not a very good kind)
  

* That's a vast improvement on what it replaced, which was nothing.

One of the nine recorded but not fully mixed tracks is called Here Comes the Summertime, and was recorded a few weeks ago in one of my more hirsute periods. It also coincided with me playing with my new iMac, which has a built-in iSight camera, and so I recorded a video as I was going along. It was fully edited in iMovie, and so it's not exactly up to the standards of Señor Spielbergo, or even (dare I say it) George Lucas, but in fairness it's our first ever video, and I didn't really know what I was doing (I still don't).

Hopefully the final version of the video will be ready to premiere in the Summertime; there might be a single at some stage; and the album should follow not long afterwards. If everything goes according to plan, which of course it never does.

In the meantime, you'll have to make do with the dregs of Dusk.

Nine facts about our ninth album

1. We've written lots of songs for it
   
2. One of them is called Better Days
   
3. We haven't thought of a name for it yet
   
4. It sounds really good so far
   
5. We're between 0% and 100% through the recording process
   
6. It's between 0% and 200% better than our eighth album
   
7. I've run out of facts
   
8. 
   
9. It will be released in summer 2008
   

The Download Chart

Well, as Simon said, 2007 was a mammoth year for downloads. Some misguided fool clicked on our tracks nearly 6000 times, so thanks very much if you are that fool. And here's the chart of our least unpopular tracks (the numbers in brackets refer to their respective 2006 positions):

1. (-) Perfect Geometry
2. (-) Consequences
3. (-) The End
4. (1) Here We Stand
5. (2) Turn the Tide
6. (-) Beneath the Silent Skies
7. (-) Moving On
8. (-) Bulletproof (western mix)
9. (-) Point of No Return
10. (-) Echoes of Perfection (demo)

To hear what you've been missing out on, why not head to the audio section of our main site, which can usually be found here.

Frohes neues Jahr and all that ...

Hello and happy new year to you (all).

I seem to remember that when we started this blog, I was going to write regular updates, just on the offchance that anyone in this or any other universe would be interested in what we'd been up to, had for breakfast, read in the Daily Mail etc.

X months later, erm, well, that hasn't quite happened has it? Road to Hell, good intentions, paving and all that. Personally, I blame the Daily Mail. Or maybe I was just lazy? Or could it be that muesli is a bit boring?

Anyway, at this time of year, it seems to be obligatory to do a review of the last year's highs and lows, preferably in a bitesize chunks top 20 format and then to make outlandish predictions for the year ahead. Do you see a bandwaggon? Well we're a band (some might say) and we're jumping right on it:

So, 2007 was pretty good for us. We released four singles from our Dust album, all packed with new songs and remixes, we were featured on the Electraparade compilation CD (buy it now!), we wrote and made demos of a pile (cohort? phalanx?) of new songs and did we remixes for Erasure and Marsheaux (not that they asked us to, mind). All this whilst trying to hold down normal jobs and occasionally have lives.

The whole MySpace / internet thing has been quite entertaining. I like the idea that anyone can knock a track together in their bedroom and then minutes later the whole world can either tell them what a steaming pile of manure it is, or propel it towards the hit parade. We've enjoyed the feedback that we've received about our songs and have been amused, encouraged, inspired and bemused in various measures by the comments that have arrived over the last 12 months.

And what of 2008? If everything goes to plan, we should have a new album out this year. The only obstacles in our way are (i) finishing the writing, (ii) doing the recording, (iii) doing the mixing and (iv) other obstacles that we haven't yet thought of. As I mentioned in the 'idle boasts of 2007' section above, the writing has been going well, so we will soon see how the album is shaping up. With a bit of luck, it will be a bit more upbeat and 'of the moment' than Dusk, but whether this constitutes an outlandish prediction remains to be seen.

Most importantly, you've been missing out on the weather updates for the last year, so here's the official summary for 2007: Summer: Wet (Jetstream allegedly too far south), Winter: Cold, everything else: Sunshine and showers.

My one and only new year's resolution: To try to make my contributions to this blog a little more frequent.

More this time next year ...