I cannot believe it - the Helzuki EP that has been taking over a year to pull together has finally arrived! All it took was for me to sit down at 11pm last night and finish mixing the sodding thing - something I have been putting off for months and months.

The songs took a while to record, and even longer to mix. The recording process was veerrrry casual - maybe one or two wine-fuelled evenings a month at best we would get together to spend on it. And we wanted so many layers, despite being only a three-piece band - the attraction of the newly built studio in our house made us want to experiment and see how much we could get away with. Then came the mixing...

At first we struggled with the mix, partly because of the number of layers we had put down, but mostly because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Then we stopped mixing because I got a new bit of kit in the studio and I was convinced that we had to start again - I think it was when the Liquid Mix arrived. Then, when Matt had mixed the first three tracks, I decided that I was ‘sick and tired’ of the songs and left it in his hands (his slow, methodical but admittedly consistent hands)... I was all “I don’t wanna know about it, don’t wanna hear those songs again!”. I think I was just frustrated with the slow pace of things.

Then, I started my PhD studies and suddenly all my spare time was gone. Matt was sort of mixing this project on and off, just to get it done and out of the way... and around this time we somehow decided that our old studio monitors were too coloured (which they were...) and we replaced them. Hence the need to start mixing again. Then, shortly after that I bought some sweet mastering plugins, and at this point I was just like “oh hell, give me those mixes, I’ll bang them out in an hour”. Which, after all the previous drama, is exactly what I did in the end!

All said and done, I think I am proud of these songs. They represent a fun time of experimentation and sharing of ideas, and a super steep learning curve in many respects - I learned so much about multitrack recording, and even more about my own creativity and how I can work with others.

The E.P. is available for free from www.helzuki.co.uk , and will be on iTunes and Amazon and everywhere else in a few days. Hoorah!


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How and when do you know when something you have created is finished? Is it when someone else, a stranger perhaps, is impressed by it? Is it when the client who asked you to make it is satisfied? The problem lies in the fact that anything you make could be improved upon, it can send you mind around the bend as you analyse all the details trying to make your ideas ‘economical’, trying to be ‘clever’ about things, all the while attempting to follow your instincts and not over-think things, even though that is exactly what you’re doing...

This is what its like to work in a vacuum. When there’s no client or boss to tell you the job is done, when the only goal is to effectively express yourself, when there are no limitations to guide you. I need to get better at this.

Anyway, enough of that. I have finished the short little LCO piece, and have just now sent this demo off. It is in the hands of fate whether it gets picked for performance in March - they may not like it for many reasons, but I feel satisfied that I have responded to the brief in my *own* way, aside from the desire to spend the rest of eternity polishing it up and fixing little details, I think it’s more or less there. It was inspired by “the Frame House” - a home design and built by architect Marcus Lee (it was featured on Channel 4’s Grand Designs program, to give you an idea of what I’m talking about). The brief was to compose a short piece for chamber ensemble that is inspired by architecture - either the Frame House or another building, the “Hot House” (designed by Cany Ash). Here’s the programme notes I sent along with the scores:

“The Siberian cedar frames hold the building together. These large wooden squares wrap around the rooms like an embrace, performing both a structural and aesthetic function that is visible and repeated throughout. The building possesses an ambience that feels natural and honest. The timber itself has a certain colour and texture that works in concert with the architectural design allowing the spaces inside to feel warm and expansive, adding character in addition to function and simplicity, a continuous theme.

My piece starts with the raw materials, working with them and perhaps even bending them slightly to construct frames around spaces, floors and rooms. The spaces have different functions and house varying levels of activity, yet they are all made of the same stuff and share the same very simplistic design.”

Here’s the score: The Materials and The Calm Work - Full Score
Here’s the MIDI demo: TM&TCW - Demo

Here’s hoping they choose to workshop the piece in March! *fingers crossed*


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Apologies (to the one person who actually reads this blog! Hi Liz), it has been a while since I have written here - I can hardly remember what actually happened in December, I can only remember a blur of flu, snow, christmas concerts, student uni applications and just general end of year stress. It went so quickly, as did the rest of 2009... which, on reflection, I suppose has been a very big year for me. It was around this time last year that I decided to create this site and try to write some music again - I remember announcing it to Matt & Liz on New Year's Eve 2008 at the Roy Ayers Jazz Cafe gig that I wanted to start my PhD over again and be a composer, and amazingly somehow I actually had the balls to give it a proper go rather than leave it as just wishful talk. I really do feel like I’ve come a long way in these last 12 short months. It’s a shame Helzuki didn’t make it, but I suppose that was always going to happen...

2 weeks off work has been wonderful - I’ve been dividing my time between writing music and playing xbox/being a bum. The game “Dragon Age: Origins” temporarily took over my life for about 6 days straight, which was great fun. It’s not often I get the chance to completely geek out like that, and it only happened because I managed to get sick with flu and couldn’t think straight enough to get any other kind of constructive work done. A blessing in disguise! I definitely have a “thing” now for the guy who voiced acted the Alistair character. SWOON.

Music writing wise, I’ve been developing some pieces for piano solo + laptop technology, which has been a real blast putting together. That, and slowly chipping away at the String Quartet (sloooowest composition ever! writing it has been like pulling teeth... but in the end I think it will come together as something i can be proud of)... also the LCO thingy which i will be working on as soon as this blog post is competed. Plenty to do, as always.

I hope everyone who stumbles across this little message has had a wonderful holiday break. Here’s to the Twenty-Teens being the best decade for us yet.
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My deck of the original Oblique Strategies arrived in the post today!

I’m so pleased to finally have them for real in my sticky little mitts and not just via an online applet, I’ve been thumbing through each card in turn, grinning to myself and imagining the crazy situations I could apply the directions to. Let’s draw one right now... it simply says “water”. Yes.

I attended the LCO New “Inspired by Architecture” study day on Monday in London. We assembled on the 9th floor of City Hall, listening to talks from the likes of Diana Burrel, Simon Bainbridge, Richard Scott, Cany Ash, David Gordon, framed by a spectacular view of Tower Bridge, Thames and the City beyond. Then we hopped on a bus and had a look at some modern functional architecture in the East End/Hackney. The idea is to compose a piece for orchestral ensemble inspired by the buildings we saw, the best few to be performed, recorded and published by the LCO early next year.

I love these sorts of things - the light a fire under you to get writing, but without the stress that comes with a real commission. And you get to meet other young composers, get a feel for what they’re trying to say. The issue I have with this work is one of ‘obviousness’... i.e., architecture and music share many concepts and vocabulary (line, form, structure, texture, repetition/pattern, juxtaposition, brightness/darkness/lightness, space/ambience, perspective/depth... the list goes on! The challenge will be to have the music refer to the buildings in an unobvious way, to avoid the whole “that line is this line, that colour is this colour” correlation that always turns out so trite and contrived. The music should maybe latch on to one detail and lose sight of the whole, or tap into the sense of movement and atmosphere, or the air that is divided and trapped within a structure. Or not... we’ll see how it turns out.

I have had some great responses to my wanted ad, and as a result some exciting commissions and collaborations in the pipeline! It’s been a while since I’ve written new music for individual players to perform, and feels strange after doing so much media stuff - the creative freedom is such a welcome change and takes a little getting used to. All this thinking of new work has given me the mojo to finish up my String Quartet for Ariella (finally). Progress!

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2009 is rolling along inevitably towards a bleak winter and new year; mid-November already and I can barely remember October at all beyond a general dark cloud of bullshit college stress, being tired and fighting off a cold. Oh, I did go and see "This is it" with Matt on Halloween night - a great film no doubt, so tragic and bittersweet. Left me feeling slightly raw, though. I guess this is our generation's Lennon or Elvis "is gone" moment. Surreal.

November has been better - saw the Lips last week at the Troxy in London, and if any gig can defeat the winter blues and put a smile on your face it would be theirs for sure. Confetti cannons, bouncing balloons, lazers, great songs, good times, good friends, Wayne Coyne in a plastic bubble, a room of people singing Yoshimi, Do you Realize?? and Fight Test in a booming unison... it was a tops night out, just what I needed.

Next week I'm attending a study day at the LCO where I get to take part in a music workshop that explores the links between composition & architecture. Just the mere thought of writing something that the London Chamber Orchestra might play in a workshop scenario makes me want to pee with excitement. I can't wait. Then on the 9th of December I have Fitkin's new Piano Concerto premier to attend. Suddenly Winter doesn't seem so dreary.

Dudley gets bigger by the day, and he's totally integrated into our lives now, it's hard to imagine what we did without him. Such a sweet pup, Matt and I had a minor scare when he ate a pig's ear a few days ago.... one minute he was happily chewing on it, next thing we knew he had gulped it down and let out a big burp. We freaked out for a bit, not knowing what to do. We looked online - which is probably the one thing a slightly paranoid puppy owner should NEVER do - and scared ourselves silly reading stories of dogs that died because of intestinal blockages, etc. We made such a fuss, but he wasn't bothered. He's a little toughian. Who will never get to nom on a pig's ear again.

Finally, I recently dug out some old Rostropovich recordings to compile into a mix tape for a friend - Lady MacBeth of Mtesnk District, the Shosta Cello Concerto and his wonderful recording of Britten's Cello Suites. Too good for words, honestly... I can't even begin to blog about how special these recordings are. I encourage anyone who likes their soviet era music to be bleak, tragicomic, intelligent, powerful and bleeding with raw downcast emotion to seek them out. Particularly the Lady Macbeth double disc from 1979. Perfection.

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Last night Matt and I had a few drinks and decided to make a video tribute to our awesome little dog...


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