Happy New Year!!
During this pandemic, I’ve enjoyed being forced into different ways to think about composition, and the different purpose behind it. Back in October and November, I was meeting trumpeter Graham South outside to make some music in the cold. We would meet each week in forests, parks, under bridges, and by rivers, to rehearse and record a new piece. As I obviously couldn’t take my drum kit, I decided to just use my snare drum and brushes – which was challenging! You can download the results from my Bandcamp here:
https://johnnyhuntermusic.bandcamp.com/album/duos-for-distancing-1-5
I hope you enjoy it. I’ve made it pay-what-you-can as I’m aware a lot of people can’t afford to spend any extra money at the moment. If you can afford it, then buy me and Graham a virtual drink! I promise to only spend the money on alcohol.
I have also been recording a new EP of ‘Studies in Lockdown‘ with my quartet (Graham South, Mark Hanslip and Seth Bennett). This was recorded in realtime over the internet, the compositions being designed to take into account the limitations of doing so.
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Outside of my own music, I have also been busy. We have done a couple of sessions with Sloth Racket over the internet using JackTrip – I am not going to pretend I know how it works, all I know is that Dave Birchall turned up on my doorstep with a little device that I can plug a microphone into then Tom Ward does something with the dark arts and now I’m able to play almost in time Seth Bennett who is over 200 miles away!
There is a Revival Room album on due to be released on Efpi Records very soon! Revival Room is Adam Fairhall’s organ trio with me and Mark Hanslip (you can hear a sample HERE).
I went up to Newcastle to record an album with the lovely John Pope. His quintet album will be coming out on the new label, New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings (buy it HERE).
Adam Fairhall and I have also recorded a duo set for Limefield Studio’s upcoming concert series! More information on that another time, but here’s a Christmas tune we did in 2019…