-------------------[25th November 2011]-----------------
I have been planning to write a new post on here for a fair old while now! In fact, I just found the following text written at the end of september about my gig in Gloucester:
"So those of you who didn't know already, I played the Underground Festival this weekend just gone. It was such fun! I had been sort of dreading it - as it was to be my first real gig in a really long time. They gave me 2 weeks notice - which was a tad short considering how out of practice I was. But apart from three squeaks on the word "promise" (Paparazzi) it went really well. I'd been sort of losing my faith in performing previously, but I feel like maybe I should be getting back into it again."
Suffice to say I thought that gig went well… as for getting back into performing again, no such luck quite yet. Though there has been news of possibly playing a new gig (somewhere close-ish to birmingham i believe)… but I'm not sure how likely that actually is right about now. I suppose I lost the enthusiasm I had a couple of months ago.
I have been working on some new songs and SugarFree though. Currently, the only stumbling block before releasing this bad boy is the song "Glass Half Full" which is quite possibly the oldest song on the album at this time - but seeing as the title refers to this song it seems kinda ridiculous to take it out - so I've been working on the mix for that, it should be sounding more real in no time (there are farer too many soft synth instruments on that track when i could be using my actual guitar (god forbid!!)). And by the sound of it I also need to do a new vocal track for Turning Key, there is some nasty clipping - though it is possible it's just a bad mix down on that one.
And, as I mentioned, there are some new songs. I've decided to bump Someone In Mind and Earthquake off the album to introduce these new tracks:
Don't Deserve It:
Strong Enough:
So it does seem december is creeping up on me quite quickly. Five days away I don't think this album will be done - especially since I don't know when I'll get any time alone between now and then. So for any of you who got excited by my Facebook post recently, sorry. Maybe new year?
Speaking of new year. I decided to write some less seasonal-specific lyrics for my track Happy New Year a few months back, the track will be on the album.
------------------[20th August 2011] ------------------
Ok, time for an update I think. First of all, I did an interview with Paul Moss on BBC Introducing (Gloucestershire) last week. He aired it this evening and I'm quite pleased with it (I'm much more talkative than I was in my Leeds interview at least... if any of you even heard it!
Anyway, I thought I would record my bit so that I can have it permenently on here. If you'd like to listen to the whole show here's the link . Unfortunately that will only last for a week from today... so if you've seen the new doctor who episode then you've missed it ;)
Hence:
Aaaand if you just listened to that, you may (or may not) have noticed the song faded out at the end. That's actually a new song I've been working on for the past month or so. So here's that little piece for your ears:
In other news, my birthday is coming up (and sorry folks, I don't think there will be an album coming out just yet)... and I've decided to get myself a decent camera for it. I have been quite obsessed with the idea of dipping my toes into photography and film-making recently. So expect to see some, hopefully well shot, music videos and such in the not so distant future. It is also quite likely that the artwork for the new album will be photographed with this new purchase. I am just dying to get started! So very excited. Anyway...
That's about it for news. I hope you've all been doing splendidly! Until next time!
------------------[30th May 2011] ------------------
[sigh] I was using comment boxes but they didn't appear to be working properly so I did a bit of research and it told me that I have to be a bit of a technowizzard so I've given up on that idea. So I think from now on I'll use this space for simple updates. I've just made a brand new facebook page for my music stuff (I have one for "Tess B & Company" but we don't exactly play together anymore so I thought a new one might be in order), and I'm planning to update that with my brainstormy stuff like the past couple of entries in here have been.
So in case you were wondering, I decided on "sugarfree" ... I think. So go to my facebook, you should see some images I've been playing with in photoshop up on that page.
Other than that, I recently did a new version of 'Happy New Year' to make it a little more commercial (or at least year-round-commercial). So there is now a version of that song somewhere called 'Let the Crowd Cheer'... aww go on then, i'll let you listen!
So yeah... I think that's all on the updates now. See you on facebook I guess.
;-)
------------------[21st May (2) 2011] ------------------
Oooo and also, I wrote a new song (for taxi) have a listen!: Take me home:
And what do you guys think of making a mailing list? I was thinking it would be nice to just have a bunch of e-mail addresses to just send a link to new songs as I write them. Have I got any hard-core fans who'd fancy that? lol
------------------[21st May 2011] ------------------
I've been thinking for quite a while now about the new album, and what I want to do with it. Names have been a tricky one for me because I want it to reflect what the album means to me. I named "Odyssey" so because I like the idea that albums are journeys, and to me the word has a lot of very visual connotations (pirate ships and all that)... actually, it was initially the name of my song "Hide" (though, actually it's more like Hide was the first name, then Odyssey, then back to Hide again), but I felt like having a "title track" was a little unoriginal and I've always liked it when albums are named by a line in one of the songs. Like "Jaged Little Pill", and "Heavier Things". Bloody good albums.
So I want to do that again, it'll be a little running idea for all of my albums, unless I do a concept album one day or something! I get the feeling that most people, when they realise that the artist has done this, tend to assume that the album title was put in the song intentionally, rather than the other way around. I think it seems more likely that most artists are doing what I'm doing - looking through their songs and finding a phrase that sums up the album.
So... I guess the first thing I should ask myself when choosing a title would be "what does the album mean as a collective". I composed a little list of adjectives that I think describes the general feel (with a few exceptions): The album is: optimistic, growing, afraid, exploratory.... So with that in mind, here are some phrases from songs (I'll say which ones they're from and link to them above the names in bold) that I quite liked. Let me know what you think!:
'Shaky Tales', 'Reining It In'
'Swimming In My Mind'
'The Way I'm Feeling', 'Expanding Minds', 'Play Pretend', 'Dare'
'The Storm Inside', 'These Stories', 'Out In The Wild', 'Searching For Clarity'
'Flew The Nest', 'Sink Or Swim', 'Some Kind Soul', 'Swallow Me'
'Fighting For Answers', 'Fought For The Truth', 'Listen and Focus'
'When You Need Me', 'Everything You Need To Know', 'At Your Mercy'
'My Dark Mind', 'Running Free', 'Sugar Free', 'Fighting For Air', 'Bloodstream'
------------------[14th May 2011] ------------------
Got my song "Change Your Mind" played on BBC introducing today! Thank you so much Paul Moss! Here's the link: Tess on BBC Introducing!
AWESOME!!
------------------[8th May 2011] ------------------
For those of you who like Imogen Heap: Fun with a vocoder
(Ok it's a little silly, but I thought someone might enjoy it!) :-P
------------------[5th May 2011] ------------------
Just a little update to tell you about the changes I made to "Ride it Out" today. I was getting a little self-concious about the vocals on the original recording so I recorded some new ones along with some more harmonies. Part of what made me want to re-visit the song was listening to demos of the song when I was first writing it. I had a few little guitar licks that I forgot about when I went in the studio with the song, so I've put in some of those ideas as well (though, some of them had to move because I've changed a lot of the harmonic structure since my first draft).
Anyway, here's the link: (Ride It Out)
It was quite interesting listening to old demos of this song, seeing how it progressed. So just in case any of you were interested I've uploaded the three demos that preceded the studio recording. You can see these files if you follow this link: (Progression of demos for RIO)
------------------[27th April 2011] ------------------
Planning a bit of an overhaul on this site. It's been a while. I've moved to Cheltenham since I last updated here, and the band has had to disband for the time being. We do hope that we'll find a way to play together again, but we all have stuff to get on with at the moment. Who knows what will happen!
Meanwhile though! I hope some of you have been following me on other sites. I'm trying to post the occasional video on youtube, and I'm putting up new songs on icompositions for my dedicated followers to listen to. And I recently signed up to taxi! So wish me luck there, the idea is I might be able to get some songs on the telly or on adverts. The dream is to be able to live off writing songs.
You may be interested to know that I recently knocked off a few dollars on my CD "Odyssey". So if you thought it was a bit pricey before, hopefully you might consider it now (Click Me). As we're on the subject, I've been thinking about releasing a new album for download. I've pretty much recorded it already, I just haven't thought of a good name or concept for the album and the artwork... But the idea is to sell it for "pay what you want" on bandcamp.
At this point I regret not having some kind of comments box. It would be lovely to see some suggestions on such things... It seems I'm good at the bit where I actually design the website, but when it comes to the actually-making-it bit I get a bit stuck. Finaly got some decent software on my mac now though so I'll keep my fingers crossed there
- Tess
------------------[August 2010] ------------------
Hello everyone!
Apologies for the lack of activity on here lately. My degree at Leeds College of Music has *just* come to a close, so now I can focus on such things as updating this website! So here I am. I plan to complete the website very soon because...
... wait for it...
I'm going to be on the radio! In fact, in all technicality I already have. Twice.
The lovely Alan Raw, who I met through the college of music at a workshop/demo doctor, has played 'Ride it Out' on his radio show Raw Talent. Here is the link if you want to listen to last Thursday's broadcast (although be quick as it runs out soon):
The band will be accompanying me on the 29th (July) for an acoustic session on the show. It's BBC Leeds not the Humberside one so it will be on a Thursday evening (rather than a Sunday). I will more likely be updating facebook for more information closer to the time so keep an eye out here:
Also, we could do with getting some gigs pretty urgently so if anybody can help don't hesitate to contact me: tessbmusic@gmail.com
- Tess
------------------[6th July 2010] ------------------
Just did a new video for my youtube account in which I'm playing my song Ride it Out on my 12-string acoustic guitar. If you want you can listen to the recorded version on this page. It's second in the playlist at the moment so if you skip past Sapphire you should be able to listen.
Here's the video:
I forgot to mention in my last entry that a song I recorded back in 2005 (I think) when I was 15 called Search Party has been chosen to appear on a compilation CD called "The Amp Vol 1" which will be on amazon in the next week or so - I will post a link here when it goes live. The Amp is a collection of the best songs that have been showcased on the website Bandamp (not to be confused with bandcamp) on which I used to frequent in my early years of songwriting. For more information on the CD go here: http://forum.bandamp.com/Announcements/27053.html
Hi everyone,
So I guess it's time I put some news up here huh?
Well firstly, a friend of mine - Chris Mounter (who you can find... here: http://www.myspace.com/chrismounter) - did a remix of a song of mine called 'earthquake' which has recently been signed to a small London based label. The track is about 7 minutes long and quite entrancing thanks to Chris
Secondly, the band and I have been in the studio a little bit over the past few weeks recording one of our songs 'Happy New Year' - this is the first recording we have done together (all recordings until now have been either just myself or had random other musicians helping me. For instance on my album Odyssey I had help from people like Alastair Thynne and Tim Louden). If we can get a few more songs recorded then we may make a short demo to hand out. I shall most likely post the recording to stream once it's been mixed properly so you can all keep your eyes peeled.
A few more things:
My song 'Ride it out' (which incidentally you can listen to on this very page!) has recieved some airplay recently in Lincolnshire (I think lincs.fm) thanks to my friend Jen who has fallen in love with the song ever since I gave her a copy of my album 'Odyssey'
I've done an acoustic version of my song 'Someone in Mind' recently at the studios in college. I did my own little mix and it is now on my myspace page (which you can visit by clicking the myspace logo at the bottom of the page). There is also a home recording of 'Turning Key' on there which you may also enjoy ^_^
The band and I did a little photo shoot about a week ago with our bass player Patrick's lovely other-half Livia. They've all come out really nicely and shall be up here shortly on the "photos" page. For now though, there are a couple from the shoot on our myspace (again, click at the bottom). Thanks again Livia for those lovely photographs.
I have been doing a few youtube videos fairly recently - including my cover version / arrangement of Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' which you should most definitely take a look at. I played it at a gig recently and it went down really well so I'm sure you'll all appreciate it.
I'm afraid that's all for now. I'll be back soon with more updates (and hopefully more than just the front page) soon.
- Tess B 02:15 28/02/2010
