I've released an album. I wrote it within two months of seeing the Birmingham Bach Choir at St Chad's Cathedral. It's minimal synth vibes in a sense - one synth and very sparse drums - but I really wanted to focus on melody and harmony, and the songs just poured out of me. It was a joy to make.
I've done a very limited run of tapes and it's available online through
@bandcamp and @subvertworld , the latter of which only went live four days ago and I'm so proud to be a part of it. I don't want anything to do with the streaming companies and have written a short piece explaining why which will go out with every tape.
It's been well over a decade since I put out a solo project on tape for a number of reasons. I still had forty cassette cases from a release that didn't happen many years ago, and I loved making this album so much that I decided to put them to use. Crude, hand-made punk aesthetics forever because I never learned a better way.
leipzigfifty.bandcamp.com
subvert.fm/leipzig-fifty
#subvert #bandcamp #minimalsynth #cassetteculture #leipzigfifty
I'm 1000 days sober today. When I left my self-prescribed medicine behind, words and music took its place, so a commemorative #currentlyspinning and #currentlyreading post feels appropriate. Never allow the things you love to fall from first place.
1000 felt so far away when I was at 500. One day at a time ✌️
#soberjourney #sobrietyjourney
I visited four cathedrals yesterday, and one the day before. By the final one I felt the need to remind myself why I was doing it in the first place, lest it become a soulless box-ticking exercise.
You can tell yourself you have the rest of your life to do the things you want to do. Life goes by and these things don't happen. A deadline is better, but you run the risk of rushing through it. The only way to mitigate that risk is to act with purpose and keep it at the front of your mind.
I went to Newcastle, Ripon, York, Wakefield and Bradford. Ripon and York are the sorts of grand and stunning buildings people expect cathedrals to be, while the rest are former parish churches which are uniquely beautiful in their own right. All are worth visiting. I've also accumulated books and records along the way because I can't stop myself.
I'd like a house at some point with a little studio where I could play an acoustic kit first thing in the morning. It puts me in good spirits. I love having an electric kit in the flat but it's not the same.
After more than twenty years I finally upgraded my kit. It's a bit of a moment. Part of me wishes I could play guitar or piano, but not if it meant sacrificing drums ❤️
#drummer #drumrecording #gretschdrums
I'm absolutely delighted to share that @floodgatepress have published a short story I wrote for their digital anthology 'The Middle of Everywhere'. It's available on their website for a mere 99p. They have my eternal adoration for giving West Midlands writers a voice.
Mine is a very short piece about a man who wonders what it even means to be from the Black Country, entwined as it is with his own troubled past and the history of capitalism, all while he shelters from the rain underneath Pratt's Mill Bridge in North Walsall. My first home was round that way. Up the Saddlers.
January of 2023 was dark and long, spent mostly between my bed and the off-licence. This wasn't unusual behaviour for the time, but I'd only just done a two-month stretch of sobriety. The fact that I wasn't in control of certain things was painfully clear.
Somehow I discovered this album during that time. I remember falling in love with it, lying in bed singing along to 'Better Save Yourself'. It was dawning on me, slowly, that I could live a better life - but it wasn't going to fall into my lap.
"You should have gave your love to Jesus. Couldn't do you no harm."
I didn't end up a Christian, but I'm not an atheist anymore. I'm aiming to visit every cathedral in England by the end of 2026. A lot can happen in three years.
#chrisbell #iamthecosmos
