"The Devil's Pulpit" is now available to stream on bandcamp.
A few tracks from the album are now on our videos page.
Dave's Concept.
High up in the woods above Tintern on the English side of the River Wye is the Devil's Pulpit, a limestone pillar. According to legend, the devil stood on the pulpit taunting the monks in the abbey below, trying to get them to join him.
After a visit to this wonderful place on 29th May 2006 I was inspired to record 10 solo guitar instrumentals (7 of which feature here) that very evening, with the idea of developing them into a "Devil's Pulpit" themed album. Despite re-visiting these tracks frequently I just couldn't find further inspiration and as other projects came along, they lay, not neglected, but not fully realised.
This was until 2015 when inspiration struck! Sean had bought not one, but two Korg Wavedrums and had set up his own studio. I sent him the original guitar tracks, he worked his magic and as a bonus sent me some drum tracks back (these were multi-layered tracks, great enough on their own!). So I supposed it was kind of Devil's Pulpit pt2. I added guitar and bass and a hint of synth on 29th and 30th October 2015.
After 9 years of pondering about this project, it has finally come to fruition and I couldn't be happier with the result. Thank you Sean!
A few tracks from the album are now on our videos page.
Dave's Concept.
High up in the woods above Tintern on the English side of the River Wye is the Devil's Pulpit, a limestone pillar. According to legend, the devil stood on the pulpit taunting the monks in the abbey below, trying to get them to join him.
After a visit to this wonderful place on 29th May 2006 I was inspired to record 10 solo guitar instrumentals (7 of which feature here) that very evening, with the idea of developing them into a "Devil's Pulpit" themed album. Despite re-visiting these tracks frequently I just couldn't find further inspiration and as other projects came along, they lay, not neglected, but not fully realised.
This was until 2015 when inspiration struck! Sean had bought not one, but two Korg Wavedrums and had set up his own studio. I sent him the original guitar tracks, he worked his magic and as a bonus sent me some drum tracks back (these were multi-layered tracks, great enough on their own!). So I supposed it was kind of Devil's Pulpit pt2. I added guitar and bass and a hint of synth on 29th and 30th October 2015.
After 9 years of pondering about this project, it has finally come to fruition and I couldn't be happier with the result. Thank you Sean!
Sean's Involvement.
In April 2015 I received an email from Dave containing 10 tracks of unresolved ideas which he had recorded after a visit to Tintern Abbey and the Devil's Pulpit. Dave asked if I could have a listen and see if I could come up with any ideas for developing them further. This happened to coincide with my intentions of creating of creating my own studio set up at home in Clevedon. I had recently purchased a mixer and additional wavedrum and was very keen to try out recording my own ideas using two wave drums seperately and simultaneously. I have always loved Dave's playing and approach to laying down atmospheres and textures in music so I really wanted to give it a go. We had both worked in tandem up until now and had produced a fairly prolific volume of work as the duo Informed Seculators but, for me this was going to involve a different way of working. .
A few weeks later after some experimentation I had managed to add percussion/additional textures to all 10 tracks and on the whole was quite pleased with the results. I forwarded these to Dave and he liked the results enough to consider producing an ep of maybe 6 tracks from the best moments. I continued to record ideas and exploit the potential and exciting prospects that working with two wavedrums offered. In order to develop them further I asked Dave if he would like to add his own contributions to 8 tracks I had recorded. Dave responded by producing his usual magic and suddenly these tracks had also evolved into seeds of another ep/album. The final piece in the jigsaw was now complete and following a suggestion made by Dave the music presented in this final format ended the 9 year journey of "The Devil's Pulpit".
In April 2015 I received an email from Dave containing 10 tracks of unresolved ideas which he had recorded after a visit to Tintern Abbey and the Devil's Pulpit. Dave asked if I could have a listen and see if I could come up with any ideas for developing them further. This happened to coincide with my intentions of creating of creating my own studio set up at home in Clevedon. I had recently purchased a mixer and additional wavedrum and was very keen to try out recording my own ideas using two wave drums seperately and simultaneously. I have always loved Dave's playing and approach to laying down atmospheres and textures in music so I really wanted to give it a go. We had both worked in tandem up until now and had produced a fairly prolific volume of work as the duo Informed Seculators but, for me this was going to involve a different way of working. .
A few weeks later after some experimentation I had managed to add percussion/additional textures to all 10 tracks and on the whole was quite pleased with the results. I forwarded these to Dave and he liked the results enough to consider producing an ep of maybe 6 tracks from the best moments. I continued to record ideas and exploit the potential and exciting prospects that working with two wavedrums offered. In order to develop them further I asked Dave if he would like to add his own contributions to 8 tracks I had recorded. Dave responded by producing his usual magic and suddenly these tracks had also evolved into seeds of another ep/album. The final piece in the jigsaw was now complete and following a suggestion made by Dave the music presented in this final format ended the 9 year journey of "The Devil's Pulpit".