Two Thousand and Eleven

I missed the opportunity to reminisce on the previous year (damn that red wine!).  So, instead here is a clink of a glass to a whole new year.  2011.

I started this website to write about the process of creating music… specifically my new album “All Monsters and Dust“.  The album has progressed and is in fact approaching completion.  I’ll be honest with you… it is a collection of songs that have been a long time in the making.  To listen to them through now is like reading a diary, or digging up fossils in the desert.  It has been a struggle, but a struggle that I have always felt compelled to struggle for.  And if 2010 proved anything, it proved that I have got it in me to complete something if I really put my mind to it.

So, here’s to 2011.  As I stated, this site was supposed to be documenting the creation and completion of my “All Monsters and Dust” album.  However, I got side-tracked on what was supposed to be a small project with American artist Bill Ryan.  The evidence of this waylayment is indeed captured on the writings on this site.  The side-project became a real all-encompassing life consumer when Bill and I decided to produce a full album of material.  This single ‘easy’ decision led to the creation of the Eleventh Hour.  Now… this year, 2011, seems the perfect year for the Eleventh Hour.  Nobody has heard of us yet.  We are a secret.  You, the readers of this site, are the only people aware of our existence.  We have a small holding on Facebook and Soundcloud… but basically, we are an unknown quantity to the world at large.  This has positives and negatives, but at the moment it can only be a positive. The invisibility allows us to create songs in private, away from prying eyes – or rather ears.  I am interested in the opinions of the few – you… but really, this is personal.  Music is always personal… but this feels real and true.

I am currently working on song #11 for the Eleventh Hour album.  Song 11, for the Eleventh Hour, in 2011.  Seems like some kind of Omen (good I hope).  I intend to make this song rock.  The album already has light and shade, but I hope to add a dimension and widen the scope with an element of danger.  I like that term, ‘danger’.  Bill was the first to talk of adding ‘danger’ to the album.  I just hope I can come close to creating what he has in his head.  The thing with us as a partnership, collaboration, duo, etc, etc, whatever… is that we are adaptable.  If Bill has issues with the music I have sent him he can have a go at changing my mind.  My mind is not easily changed… but I like that Bill and I do honestly accept that “there is no spoon”. Ha ha!

As I’ve talked/written about previously, the Eleventh Hour has allowed me to expand my horizons.  The project has freed me somewhat from the constraints of expressing myself through lyrics.  I have, for a change, been allowed to create musical landscapes… it has been for Bill to populate them.  For this Eleventh Hour project I am responsible for the majority of the music and Bill for the majority of the lyrics.  Now… we can leave the argument about which is the most important for another day… but the particulars of the way Bill and I have fallen into the method of creation of this album have allowed me to write faster than ever before.  I find ideas streaming from my head.  I try to catch them like a butterfly in a net.  I then stamp that butterfly as flat as I can and send it over to Bill in the hope that he likes the colours.  So far… so good.  The random words I type here, when combined, are the reason I am so optimistic and enthusiastic about the year ahead.  We have an album to finish.  That, to be honest, is the easy part.  We have to step out of the shadows and blind the world with Eleventh Hour light!  Ha ha!  I’m ready for the challenge.  And I’m sure now that you’ve flitted in and out of this site and songs you’ll also be interested in the conclusion?  Yes? No?

I am now going to turn my attentions to another song.  Like I say, when the mojo is working you just have to run with it.  You have to be single-minded, determined.  I hear new music everyday, up and coming bands.  New sounds.  New styles.  Yet I can say with all confidence that I am certain that the finished Eleventh Hour album will be a surprise to many people.  It will hit hard with unbridled emotion and a gutteral punch.  Most of all it will be a statement of who I am – the result of everything that has come before.

So, bring it on 2011.  Fists in the air for “The Eleventh Hour”!  🙂