Last September, I met a guy that I vaguely knew called Charlie Barnes at a gig. He said that he had heard that I was a pretty decent classical musician, and that he needed some help arranging string parts for his album, and also needed some double bass recording. I said that I would be glad to help, and so 60+ hours and far too many coffees later, we ended up with an albums worth of scores for a string quartet, as well as double bass, clarinets, flutes and trumpets.
Then in January, we hit the studio (by which I mean my living room) and recorded the double bass parts, and then we went to a proper studio and I recorded the bass guitar stuff, including a bunch of synthy effected lines. Charlie also decided that he was sick of being a solo musician (up to now he has gigged entirely on his own, using a laptop, a looper and some beatboxing skills) and wanted to put together a band, so I became his live bassist.
It's all coming together now - the album has been mixed and mastered, and the actual CDs are being delivered to Charlie tomorrow. We're having a big album launch party/Charlie's 21st birthday party on Sunday. It's all very exciting, which brings me to the reason why I'm here.
As part of the promo for the album, Charlie is giving away one of the tracks from the album completely free. Basically, I just thought that I would let you know so that if you were interested then you knew about it. Head over to
Charlie's Myspace, and then scroll down and click on the green button just below the blog. If you like what you hear, you could watch
this video to hear some snippets of the rest of the album. If you still like what you hear, you could even
pre-order the album (although as I type this, the site is currently being updated to reflect the fact that the limited special edition versions are sold out, but it should be working again by tomorrow).
That's it really I guess. If you enjoy it, let me know. If there's any questions I can answer, fire away!
Cheers
Jon
EDIT: The website has been sorted and you can now order the album again. Every copy ships with a free gift, although don't ask me what it is because I have no idea...
