New review of 'Alluvial' EP from NetMusic Life Blog

(In Italian): Non nuovo agli ambienti netlabels, Northcape, artista autodidatta inglese proveniente da Warwickshire ritorna con questo intenso e fluido "Alluvial EP" rilasciato dalla lettone Elpa. Un EP ispirato dalla geologia e dalla preistoria umana, dalla difficilmente immaginabile lentezza con cui il nostro pianeta ha impiegato ad evolversi. Siamo in zone ambient, in cui i lunghi accordi di tastiere si perdono nello spazio infinito inseguendo nordiche correnti d'aria. Northcape riesce a trasmettere l'idea di un mondo precivilizzato galleggiando tra riverberi ipnotici e sovrapposizioni d'arpeggi (Water Over Flint) in cui i pochi elementi che potrebbero ricondurci alla nostra caotica era sono i battiti ritmici elettronici. "Doorways Facing East" è un piccolo esempio in cui l'ambient può contenere anche elementi di tensione, un quieto risveglio disturbato, un amara consapevolezza che la strada compiuta finora è stata cancellata da tremendi e indelebili eventi ambientali. Ben rappresentato dalla foto di copertina, "Alluvial EP" è acqua che scorre, nitida sorgente di emozioni e sensazioni che Northcape sa trasmettere con semplicità ed onestà. (Rough English translation- apologies for any errors, due to a combination of myself and google!): Not new to the environment of netlabels, Northcape , an English self-taught artist from Warwickshire returns with this intense and fluid "Alluvial EP" released by the Latvian Elpa netlabel. An EP inspired by the geology and human prehistory, from the hard-to-imagine slowness that our planet has taken to evolve. We are in ambient areas, where long arrangements of keyboards are lost in the infinite space chasing northern air currents. Northcape is able to convey the idea of ​​a pre-civilisation, floating world with overlaps between reflections and hypnotic arpeggios (Water Over Flint) in which the few elements that might lead us back to our era are chaotic rhythmic electronic beats. "Doorways Facing East" is a small e [...]

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

Alluvial EP out on Elpa music ~Thursday 9th June (free d/l!)

The new 4-track "Alluvial" EP will be released by Latvian netlabel Elpa Music for FREE download around Thursday June 9th. The catalogue number is Elpa70 and you can find the label here: http://www.elpamusic.lv/ The 'Alluvial' EP is inspired by geology, human prehistory and the idea of 'deep time' (I was reading about some of these subjects when producing the EP!) I have tried to express a sense of scale, which is in contrast to the more personal landscapes that inspire much of Northcape's material. The result is this EP which contains four slow-building but still melodic tracks with a more ambient feel. Some of the tracks are inspired by the idea of human habitation in the distant past, and others by geological space- the release image is pretty much a landscape I was imagining when I was writing the tracks. The sound is definitely an exploration of new ground - expect something a bit different from my normal approach to melodic electronica- but I think these tracks still keep a recognisable sound. Thanks to Elpa for releasing this EP, they have released some great material in the past and I'm glad that this release will be on there.

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

Working in isolation

Recently I decided to put a 'draft' track up on soundcloud, it's the first time for a while I've done this. In the past I put most things up on music forums and learned a lot from doing that, but since being signed (to a small independent label, but a good one), I decided to try to take a more 'professional' approach to my music. I'm not quite sure what that really means, but part of what I think it means to avoid releasing anything on the internet apart from the final version, when it finally comes out through the label. The idea is obviously that people then only ever hear your music at its best, and never hear all the mistakes on the way. However this is a tough thing to do, and not just because you get quite impatient waiting for something to finally be released! In my day-to-day life I don't have access to the quality of feedback available in various places on the internet, and I've been finding myself building up a number of unfinished of tracks which I've been unsure are really 'good enough' for release, either in terms of the basic ideas or in terms of how I've executed them... In the past I would have just finished these tracks, put them up on a forum, and judged from the feedback whether they were potentially releasable as part of an album or EP, but without this I've been struggling. Perfectionism is part of it, and confidence is another part. So I can work towards the next full release (whatever or whenever that is, I don't yet know) I've decided I basically need to get more tracks finished, and if there's something I really can't judge, I just need to put it out there somewhere and try to get a second opinion... I won't be releasing everything in draft form, but sometimes it definitely helps.

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

Remake vs Remix

Recently I rashly promised to do a 'remake' of a track as part of a project where different artists are creating their own versions of tracks from a new album. I initially thought that this could be a remix, working with at least parts of the original, but hadn't realised that the concept was an entirely new version of the chosen track (no reuse of any wav files allowed!) This was quite daunting initially but I've made some progress and have a rough mix of something that will hopefully appear on the final compilation. The original album as a whole is in a different, more intense style to my normal listening, and is as much alternative (with vocals) as electronic, which has added to the difficulty of choosing a track to work on. I've tried to avoid subjecting anyone to my version of vocals and picked one of the more chilled, instrumental tracks... However, trying to interpret the original version of the track while making it sound like something by Northcape has still proved a challenge, but hopefully a worthwhile one! I'll let you know when there's more news on this.

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

Northcape Website blog back up (again)

I have now re-added the wordpress blog following some initial bugs. Please let me know if you spot anything else wrong with it. I have however given up on the planned complete site recode, it's not worth the time and effort by itself and is best included in the next site re-design. Wordpress itself is proving quite difficult for me to work with, the preset templates are fine but moving away from that to the kind of site I have got at the moment is by no means easy. I've therefore settled for a kind of compromise for the moment- the majority of the site, although re-coded in php, is not hosted in wordpress. The only page that is hosted in wordpress is in fact this blog... A bit messy in terms of the files involved but it does work and I'd rather spend more time on music. I may keep working on this in the background from time to time but I'm a bit frustrated with the sheer complexity of programming in wordpress as opposed to programming in html or even php. However the good news is this blog is now working with comments and all the other wordpress functionality, which was the initial objective! I just got sidetracked in to tidying up some code...

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

Clear Moment Remixed- Credits

Northcape- Clear Moment Remixed EP

Confirmed Tracklisting

1) Clear Moment (Metaphysical Mix by 2ndmouse)
2) Clear Moment (Zeropage Mix)
3) Clear Moment (Autorotation Remix)
4) Clear Moment (emorej Remix)
5) Clear Moment (Distant Fires Burning Remix)
6) Clear Moment (eyes cast down Mix)
7) Clear Moment (Absorb Fish Remix)

Artist Details

2ndmouse
Remix Credits: 2ndmouse
Website: http://www.2ndMOUSEofficial.com
Download: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003U17720/believe-20/
Bio: The music of 2ndMOUSE is about the fusing together of emotion and technology, and its heart lies in the roots of Detroit techno and Kraftwerk. It’s a deliberate attempt to bring together the polar opposites of soul and microchip in a symbiotic way to make poignant and evocative journeys into territories most dance music won't go.

Zeropage
Remix Credits: Zeropage
Website: http://www.zeropage-media.com
Buy: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/zeropage
Bio: Zeropage are the two producers Stefan Fuhrer and Frédéric Arneberg from Bern, Switzerland. They have a chilled yet bright and melodic sound incorporating both instrumental and classic electronic elements. The duo started in the early 80’s, sold a few thousand CDs in the 90’s, did music for film, dance and jazz in 2000. Nowadays, they meet several times a month to experiment with sounds. With their long time experience in creating electronic music, their “jam sessions” often end in fully produced songs.

Autorotation
Remix Credits: music, vocals and lyrics by Autorotation
Website: http://www.autorotation.org
Buy: http://autorotation.org/cmsms/index.php?page=e-is-e
Bio: London based Autorotation blur the lines between several genres of music from electronica to shoegaze while avoiding being pigeonholed into any one category. Since forming, the group has released three albums and several singles on TeknoStan Records, Comfortstand Recordings, Periphery Records and TMBase. Autorotation performed live in the UK, Canada and Europe, sharing the stage with acts such as Styrofoam, Solvent, Rechenzentrum and Schneider TM.


emorej
Remix Credits: emorej
Website: http://www.facebook.com/emorej
Download: http://emorej.bandcamp.com/
Bio: Emorej makes a variety of electronic music. He is influenced by a lot of styles. Although the music cuts across the different genres, one key element in most of emorej’s sound is the melody.

Distant Fires Burning
Remix Credits: Distant Fires Burning
Website: http://www.doorchaser.tk
Download: http://www.doorchaser.tk
Bio: Gert De Meester (born may 17 1977), who is also known as the former bass player of the world-fusion-funk combo The Seven Laws of Woo and knob twiddler of The Mental Attack, 2?? and Distant Fires Burning, lives in Mechelen, Belgium. In 2007 Gert started to experiment more with ambient. He was asked to make the soundtrack of a commercial for the brand “Kinto”. At the same time he began to make an ambient album, because the genre drew his attention more. He renamed himself “Distant Fires Burning” just to state the difference with the more beat-oriented work by “The Mental Attack”. In 2008 he self-released the CD “Messierobjekten” as “Distant Fires Burning”. In 2009 he released the CDR "7 Sisters" and on April 14 2010, U-Cover Records releases the third album by Distant Fires Burning, "Build on Me", on it's sub label U-Cover CDR Limited.

eyes cast down
Remix Credits: eyes cast down
Website: http://www.eyescastdown.com
Download: http://www.eyescastdown.com
Bio: eyes cast down began his ambient/atmospheric musical explorations in 2005. Using guitars, synths, percussion, singing bowls, voices, samples & loops, he seeks to create personal and contemplative musical spaces. He also has a trio project, Keshava-Lila. The first solo and trio albums are both nearing completion.

Absorb Fish
Remix Credits: Absorb Fish
Website: http://myspace.com/absorbfish or http://soundcloud.com/absorb-fish
Buy: http://www.skprecordings.com/release.php?rel_id=17
Bio: Absorb Fish is an American electronic artist from Boston, MA. His sound could be described by ambient experimental electronics but often fusing various genres such as industrial, hip hop, broken beats, and downtempo. Over the years, he has contributed music to 3bass Records, Project 168, Artificial Bliss Recordings, and SKP Recordings. His most recent release "Frenetic", a dark electro fused EP, was released January 2010 on SKP Recordings.

Clear Moment Remix Competition

EDIT- Competition now closed and tracklisting announced!
Tracklisting of 'Clear Moment Remixed':

1) Clear Moment (Metaphysical Mix by 2ndmouse)

2) Clear Moment (Zeropage Mix)

3) Clear Moment (Autorotation Remix)

4) Clear Moment (emorej Remix)

5) Clear Moment (Distant Fires Burning Remix)

6) Clear Moment (eyes cast down Mix)

7) Clear Moment (Absorb Fish Remix)

I'll announce when this is released
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Hi all,

Following the big success of my previous 'Red Panda' remix competition (you can hear and download the great results here), I've decided to try another one. This is of the track 'Clear Moment' from my new album 'Captured From Static' (chilled ambient-ish electronica, which you can hear here- http://www.northcapemusic.co.uk/music.html).
I've already cleared this with the label (Sun Sea Sky) and they've agreed not only to the remix competition but also that if there are enough results suitable for an EP they'll release it as a free download through the Sun Sea Sky website, obviously with the agreement of the artists involved. So the idea is

1) You can hear the original 'Clear Moment' here to decide if it's something you'd like to remix
2) Then get the remix pack (probably best in FLAC) from bandcamp- here
http://northcape.bandcamp.com/album/clear-moment-remix-pack. It's set up so all of the tracks start from the beginning of the main track, so some of them are silent at first. It's 120bpm.
Please note that your email address is just collected here to keep remixers informed on the progress of the compilation, and for no other reason :-)
3) Remix- in absolutely any style you want- but it must be a 'remix'- creative interpretation of this is welcome but it must noticeably use at least some elements of the original track! The remix pack is creative commons 'Attribution, non-commercial'. This means you're free to use the remix in any way you want, provided that it's non-commercial and credited as a remix of Clear Moment by Northcape. ie please use the naming convention for the track -Northcape - Clear Moment (Artist Mix). The reason for this is so it's clear its a remix of Northcape, and not a collab or something else! Thanks!
4) Then upload the result in 192kps mp3 here
http://soundcloud.com/northcape/dropbox if you want to enter it for the EP. I'd anyway like to hear any remixes!
5) Please note the deadline for the remix is Sunday 4th July- if it goes well I'll choose my favourite remixes for inclusion on the EP, and they will be professionally mastered and made available as a free download release (with the artist's agreement!) from Sun Sea Sky Productions. My decision is final ;-)
I'm especially keen to get remixes in a variety of genres and styles, hopefully some people will be interested!
Any questions, please contact me here.
Cheers,
Alastair