Improved Northcape website now up!

Hi, I know it's not long since the last website update, but after using it for a year or so I decided that there were too many problems with the last version. It also didn't work at all on mobile phones. I've spent a few weeks re-writing it from scratch in wordpress - although it looks similar, it is completely new under the surface and I think will be easier to update going forward. Main updates are: 1) It's now 'responsive' and should work at least on some mobile phones, ipads etc. I obviously have only managed to test it on a few devices so let me know if you have problems. 2) The whole site is designed around Northcape's music and releases to a greater extent than before. This also feeds into the forthcoming new album release - more news shortly! 3) In general, I think the site should be easier and more straightforward to navigate. Anyway, please leave any comments here, or even better, on the guestbook: http://www.northcapemusic.co.uk/guestbook. As normal, any feedback on the music or site would be greatly appreciated! Cheers, NC

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Red Panda Remixed

[soundcloud id='69214006'] [soundcloud id='69214007'] [soundcloud id='69214009'] [soundcloud id='69214010'] [soundcloud id='69214005']

Label:	Sun Sea Sky Productions
Release no:	SSS040
Number of tracks:	7
Released:	27 Apr 2008
Free d/l MP3/FLAC:	http://northcape.bandcamp.com/album/red-panda-remixed

http://www.northcapemusic.co.uk/news/

Alluvial EP

[soundcloud id='18159187']

Label:	Elpa
Release no:	Elpa70
Number of tracks:	4
Released:	11 Jun 2011
Free d/l MP3/FLAC:	Archive.org

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Clear Moment Remixed

Label:	Sun Sea Sky Productions
Release no:	SSS040
Number of tracks:	7
Released:	05 Oct 2010
Free d/l MP3/FLAC:	http://sunseasky.bandcamp.com/album/clear-moment-remixed

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Some Bright Valley

[soundcloud id='51235805']

Label:	Monotonik
Release no:	MTK202
Number of tracks:	4
Released:	26 May 2008
Free d/l MP3/FLAC:	http://www.archive.org/details/mtk202

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Exploration and Ascent

Hi. I'm happy to finally be able to share the title of what is hopefully the new Northcape album! It's called 'Exploration and Ascent' which in a way I think is a nice summing-up of the process of creating it. Like the mountaineers whose book was the original inspiration fo this, the album has explored plenty of dead ends before finding a way forward, and there are many track ideas that didn't make it. The ones that did, have felt worth pursuing, even if the path to the album has felt steep at times. I've tried to create some kind of unity in the sound while also keeping enough variety from track to track, and this is always a challenge - at the end of the day I don't think it's a good idea to try too hard to control where a new track idea is going, so I've aimed for as good a compromise as possible. I definitely think the sound of this album shows a clear evolution from the last two Northcape releases. The track titles are always important for me, and recently I made a change to the track order which I'd been mentally struggling against for a while, partly at least because the tracks had always been planned to fall in one order, to tell a story (if only in my head) and rearranging them felt vaguely like falling short of the original concept. At the end of the day though albums always evolve during the process, and the final order just makes more sense in terms of musical flow. It's probably obvious by now (!) that I find that finalizing an album and 'letting go' is the hardest part of the whole process. This explains why it feels like I announced there was a new album on the way ages ago, and not much has seemed to happen since - in reality I've been struggling with perfectionism, I want the album to be as good as it can be, but it's also true that the same track can sound different on different days, so I'm unlikely to ever be completely happy with everything. Bass has been a particular concern, my 'studio' at home is never going to be brilliant for acoust [...]

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New track on free d/l Elpamusic compilation now out

Hi, Just a brief blog post to let you know the track 'Morning Bell' is out now on the new Elpamusic compilation. You can find it here (click on the image): It's a piece of warm ambient which was at least partly inspired by time spent in Japan a few years ago, and incidentally one of Northcape's longest tracks to date... Free download along with tracks by mint, Thompost and others. Please let me know what you think!

http://www.northcapemusic.co.uk/news/

Live acoustic version of 'Clear Moment'

Here is a recent live performance of 'Clear Moment' by Autorotation in London. Autorotation have obviously made this their own but you can still hear elements of the Northcape original in there. It's sometimes unpredictable what effect music will have when it's released... Very happy that the original started things off and lead to this, the vocal and guitar transform the track into something else. You can pick up this track, along with 6 other remixes of the original (which appears on 'Captured From Static') from bandcamp for free: http://www.sunseasky.com/releases/SSS040.html All the versions are great in my opinion (not just this one) so I'd recommend it!

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Northcape album news April 2012

I had a setback today when the power supply on my PC blew up, but I hope this can be fixed within the next week or so ... Otherwise work on the new album was going well... I hope to have a track up on soundcloud soon (http://soundcloud.com/northcape). It hasn't been an easy process getting to this point (see my previous blog), but I'm hoping that I have made a breakthrough in the overall sound and coherence of the album. The album was originally inspired by a classic account of the exploration and discovery of the first route to the Nanda Devi Sanctuary in the Himalaya. This may or may not seem like a promising subject, but it gave a structure to the album, although it has obviously taken it's own route from there. Apart from anything else I have had a clear sequence of images in my head while composing some of the tracks and although I have never been to the Himalaya I have nevertheless drawn from my own experience when writing the tracks. The album also has a slightly different overall sound from Captured From Static, with more use of distortion. It feels like a logical progression as the sound draws from the Alluvial EP (free!- http://archive.org/details/elpa70) as well as Captured From Static. Currently there are 11 tracks, although it's possible this may increase. I'm still some way off a release date, but I'll let you know when there is more news!

http://www.northcapemusic.co.uk/news/

New Northcape remake 'Sundowner' now out

The Northcape remake of Mike Allen's track 'Sundowner' is now available for free d/l. You can pick this up plus the other two remakes from the Bandcamp release page here: http://sunseasky.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-from-home-revisited . This track was a challenge as it's not a remix, I wasn't allowed to use any of the original sounds from the track so it had to be remade from scratch, based on the original. The original is part of quite an intense and dark album in a different style to the music I normally listen to, which made it even more of a challenge, but it was a good experience to work on this and I think the final result does capture something of the feel of the original while still being recognisably 'Northcape'. I did this a while ago, so it's not really a clue to the sound of the tracks on the in-progress album (more on that later) but I'm glad it has finally been released. I also recommend the Boc Scadet remake.

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The elusive next album

I am currently going through another difficult period in the creation of my own music (in fact, it rarely seems to be easy!). I have ideas, and some good tracks (at least 5 or 6, probably more) that I think deserve to be released and hopefully will be, one way or another. Unfortunately, somehow this collection of tracks doesn't form the type of coherent whole that is needed to release an album. Some of the ideas come from quite different places from each other, both in terms of sound and inspiration. I know that some people would argue that doesn't matter, particularly in the context of the internet, but as I've written in a previous blog, I am a big fan of the album format. I still listen almost exclusively to full albums or EPs, and don't want to give up on the idea of releasing something that builds connections between the different tracks to form something deeper and more complex. This is the real challenge, and I think giving up on doing this would be a step backward for the Northcape project as a whole and not really worthwhile. I think everything that I have previously completed has achieved a coherence across each release to a greater or lesser extent, if not perfectly, and I don't want to release music just for the sake of getting another entry in the discography. However for any new album to work, I need not only a strong idea or overall concept, but for the idea to inspire an album structure that makes sense to me, and not only contains tracks that I have already but forms the inspiration for new ones and suggests how they can be arranged. This is very hard, and at the moment, it hasn't really happened, despite having something that may well be the concept behind the next album. Trying to write tracks in a style to suit tracks that have already been written isn't really working. Perhaps I need to take a step back from it rather than force the concept too much and potentially put obstacles in the way of producing new music.

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