Richard Marggraf Turley is an award-winning poet, novelist, world expert on literature of the Romantic era and blues shouter. We got the idea of setting to music some of the verses from his collection The Fossil-Box. I used this as an opportunity to experiment with the digital tools that allow computer musicians to do all…
Continue readingStreaming Part 1
I’ve finally entered the vaguely surreal world of online music streaming. Through a portal by the odd name ‘DistroKid‘, I’ve been able to distribute tracks and albums to all the major streaming platforms eg Spotify (here’s the first uploaded track), iTunes etc. If you use any of these services, you can find this stuff by…
Continue readingVivid black
I made a video setting of this beautiful song by Maggie Nicols, which we recorded last year.
Continue readingThe Country Side of Jazz
The album has finally arrived. Nance Wilson and I model the promotional T-shirts to celebrate the fledging of this long-incubated hatchling. Among the many unique features of this collection is lyrics that include the words ‘isinglass’ and ‘Yggdrasil’. See www.wilson-thomas.com for more.
Continue readingThe Nance Wilson 5-piece Trio at Stylus
Nance Wilson will be performing with Andy Faulkner (bass, guitar) and Sid Thomas (piano, clarinet) at Stylus Lounge in Baldock, 24 June.
Continue readingCounsel to girls
I’ve updated the page of info about my 2016 book SENESCENCE and included a link to a new video of senescence-related images with a soundtrack from the forthcoming Wilson-Thomas album ‘The Country Side of Jazz’. It’s a setting of Robert Herrick’s poem ‘Counsel to girls’, alternatively known as ‘To the virgins, to make much of…
Continue readingWebsite repair, maintenance and update
I’ve taken the opportunity of enforced indoorness imposed by the unpleasant Easter weather to treat the website to an overhaul. Under construction or dead pages are no longer empty or moribund. I’ve consolidated various fossil blog pages so that now there’s just the main site (this one) and the Idle Weeds blog (which I hope to…
Continue readingThe Country Side of Jazz
Nance Wilson and I have I have just about finished recording and mixing our album of artisan-crafted, locally-sourced, whole-earth, non-urban songs, performed in a diversity of styles and moods. Here’s a glimpse of the track list. Next step is to finalise the design and liner notes for the album and start CD production. We have…
Continue readingSeminar to launch The War Between Trees and Grasses
Today (13 November) I made a presentation in IBERS Aberystwyth to mark the publication of my new book, The War Between Trees and Grasses. It was accompanied by a Twitterstorm (hashtag #wartreegrass) and resulted in an interesting and thoughtful Q&A session (as well as the sale of a few copies of the book). Here’s a…
Continue readingThe Country Side of Jazz
Nance Wilson and I have been working on an album of defiantly non-urban jazz songs. There’s a preview of four of the tracks on Soundcloud.
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