In May, I’ll be in the air and on the road with Neil Halstead for his four date mini-tour of Scandinavia. We’ll be playing tracks from his album ‘Palindrome Hunches‘.
The dates are:
This year I have decided to record and release Snowdrops as a Christmas single.
The song, released on Monday 10th December, is an interesting counterpart to its floral cousin, English Rose, in that it celebrates life that blooms in the winter time.
I don’t expect to beat the X-Factor single to Number One this Christmas but, as always, I would love your support! You can download it direct from my Bandcamp page, here: andrewmilloy.bandcamp.com.
Edit: it’s now live on iTunes as well: here.
The songs are available on a three-track EP, from as well as the usual online music outlets! Proceeds from the sale of the EP will support the work of Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity.
You can read more about the interviews in an article on the BBC website.
Featuring fingerstyle guitar and ukulele in an arrangement that builds and builds, the song is available on iTunes, Amazon MP3 and direct from me (name your price!) at andrewmilloy.bandcamp.com
The Invisible Few will be playing on the Saturday night at the Beer Festival at Didcot’s Cornerstone Arts centre. As well as yours truly on bass and vocal duties, we will have Maff Potts on keyboards, Phil Shepherd on guitars and Tom Shepherd on drums. The theme for that evening’s entertainment, on Saturday 28th July 2012, will be “Steampunk Pop” so we will be able to let our quirky side go wild again! We will be on stage at around 9pm.
Details of the event can be found here: www.cornerstone-arts.org.uk. I will also be selling CD copies of the Philomena EP at the gig, if you want to come and buy a copy!
Also at the beer festival the following day, Band of Hope and Hundred Acre Wood will both be making an appearance, so it promises to be a busy weekend!
I wrote these three songs in memory of my daughter, Philomena. These recordings were done between December 2011 and April 2012, and feature some great musicians.
The sale of this EP will raise money for Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity, who do great work in supporting anyone affected by the death of a baby in the UK.
Your support would be much appreciated!
I am about to finish work on the 3-track EP “Philomena” which I hope to release in the next month or two. Two of the tracks on this EP feature string arrangements that I hope add depth and expression, as well as bringing in some rich harmony…
In February I had the privilege of recording OXUS string quartet playing my arrangement for English Rose. This song has a very acoustic folk feel, and I wanted the sound of a small chamber ensemble rather than sampled or synth strings (which would not have suited the arrangement at all). As well as a couple of takes of full quartet, we also recorded overdubs with just the upper strings, con sordino (this can then be brought into the mix if we need to fill out the sound). Having Sibelius playing the parts alongside the main tracks in Pro Tools 9 (via ReWire) was useful during the arranging stage, but hearing a professional quartet play it for the first was a moving and breathtaking experience (and such nice people too 
).
However, the title track, Philomena, needs a more epic, cinematic string sound for its climactic ending, so I turned to the many sample libraries available. These have come on a great deal since I first tried mocking up orchestral arrangements in Sibelius a few years ago. My first attempt was using EWQL Hollywood Strings, which had received great reviews; unfortunately it turned out to be practically unusable on my modest music machine (a 2.8GHz core duo iMac with 4MB RAM). Even my i7-based laptop equipped with 8GB struggled to play back the more lightweight legato patches, one instrument at a time, with reliable timing. So this was duly returned to the seller, and replaced with LASS Lite (LA Scoring Strings), which ran beautifully and will hopefully sit in the mix. It was particularly satisfying to be able to control the speed of the portamento easily, to get some nice cello position-change effects.
Stay tuned for more EP news over the next few weeks!
On Friday I attended the beautiful Lights of Love service in St Paul’s Knightsbridge, organised by UK Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity. The service gave bereaved parents a chance to remember their lost children and light a candle in memory of them.
I had the privilege of singing a song a wrote for my daughter Philomena, which I hope to release sometime next year, to raise awareness and funds for Sands, on CD and digital download. Watch this space for more news on that project.
Photo by Ben Barrett
Also featured on the night were local handbell ringers, who drew the audience out to participate in a few carols. I even did my bit, playing low C and D bells!
Guitarist and tutor Simon Nelson and I are proud to announce that the first Android version of our rhythm guitar trainer 8Strummer is now available on the Android Market. Since the iOS version was released in June this year, we have had an overwhelming number of requests for an Android version.
You may find the app here on the Market website. If you are viewing this on an Android phone, you may also click here to go directly to 8Strummer in the Market app.
Don’t forget to like the Facebook page as well!