Album?

So I decided on pulling together some of the best stuff of the last one and half years (singles, some tracks from EPs) and some new material into an album of some kind.

I asked a little while ago via social media who would be interested in a ‘Rich Brown’ physical CD. I had a dozen responses and after talking to a few people there’s maybe a reason to make a very small batch of 50~100.

Mediums are an interesting topic at the moment. Some people scratch their heads at CDs and buy new cassette tapes. Vinyl sales are at $619.6 million. What a time to be alive.

I have two completely new songs that are ‘under wraps’ so far. That’s a hard thing to do. The first instinct if you have made something beautiful is to shout it from the roof tops. Like falling in love or finding a beer in the fridge when you thought you’d finished them all.

I think I have a couple more ideas to see through and then I plan to comb through the Covid Catalogue and see what can work.

I’m really excited about it. I’m also a little anxious about what to choose. It’ll be almost like an ‘end point’ to the last year and a half of writing. I have written, recorded, mixed and put out 10 original songs within the last year and a bit. There’s also a few on the scrapheap and a few never finished. Ironically here’s a lyric from a song I never did finish to sum it up:

‘Is the sun gonna burn your gut if ya
put down the paper and believe in luck will ya
own the process as you self destruct will ya
find a way, find a way back home’

Gotta keep writing it’s the closest I’ll get to sanity.

Pandemo

Just to provide some visual context. This is the start of lockdown.

Recording harmonies in there was ‘press record and you had 60 seconds to crawl in before the track would start’. Really slick.

Moving from this I decided to promote my daughter to the more spacious loft room pictured and seize control of her old bedroom.

This developed into this:

So the process has evolved making writing/recording much easier. Along the way I’ve read a lot, experimented and come up with my own little method for recording/producing which (look away actual professionals and likely also, future me)… sounds really good.

From songs about envying peoples mental health to cautionary tales about the worrying void that is ‘the media of the future’ to songs questioning your own neurodiversity or individuality. It doesn’t make sense in 2021 for a relatively unknown independent artist to release a 3 track EP. Well here we are :-)

Thank you so much to so many people for your belief and support in my music. Thank you to my wife for being supportive and allowing me to spend an entire week nose deep in strings, menus and microphones in order to make this beautiful mess. Thank you to my friends and brother who have been amazing at giving feedback and suggestions on sound/mix etc. It’s been a big journey and it feels good to share the ending with you all.

Brownie x