Archives for category: Chris Fordham
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Memory #14

07/11/2023 //
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Kismet Hardy were an excellent new folk group from the Northampton – Kettering area. They played a mix of traditional and original folk music and were regulars at acoustic evenings in the county and further afield. I was a big fan and would invite them to play my Folk In The Afternoon gigs at The Fishmarket Art Gallery and Nook Cafe. Having shared stages with them numerous times we got to discussing recording. Back around 2010 time my recording setup was minimal and lo-fi to an extreme! We recorded a 5 song EP in a mixture of my student room and various band members houses. The setup was an AXL mixer and a passive AKG microphone directly into a laptop headphone socket…how the recording sounds as good as it does is a mystery. For one thing, it’s the musicianship and songwriting that elevates this session.

My favourite of the songs we tracked was ‘May Song’, which fortunately still lives on an old SoundCloud account from when I was making a go of recording projects around Northampton. The song begins on a pair of Jon Delaney’ guitars before Kate Beresfords vocals lead in. After a verse the rhythm section of Rai Clews on cajon, and Kevin Ward on fretless bass power in alongside a flute solo. On this particular song I only contribute a backing vocal and the recording setup and mix. Elsewhere on the EP I would play violins and additional percussion.

I would love to hear more of this band again, their SoundCloud page is still active and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying revisiting their songs this evening. ‘Wasps Nest‘ was always a favourite: (I’d have made sure we recorded it if it had been written before our sessions).

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Categories Chris Fordham, Fishmarket Art Gallery, Folk In The Afternoon, In The Studio, Kismet Hardy, Live, Nook Cafe, Other Projects/Collaborations etc., Production

One Day The Sadness Will End…

27/10/2023 //
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The new album from The Silent Committee is finally here!

It is entitled; ‘One Day The Sadness Will End, But I Don’t Think Today Is The Day’.

This uplifting collection of 10 songs features ambiance, acoustic instruments and electronic experimentation in equal measures.

The album can only be found to stream/download on the BandCamp page. The download also comes with large format, high quality artwork files.

  1. One Day The Sadness Will End, But I Don’t Think Today Is The Day
  2. Lyrical and Imprecise
  3. Invisible Maps
  4. Diminished
  5. If You Can Forget What Hour It Is
  6. December ’08
  7. A Still, Leaden Sky
  8. I Will Wait, I Will Perch
  9. City of Reflections
  10. 333-2

All music written, performed, recorded, and mixed by Chris Fordham. He also did the cover artwork too.

Many thanks to Becky Fordham for putting up with me during the making of this record. Also special thanks to Jon Stolber for lending an ear in the recording phase.

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Categories Chris Fordham, In The Studio, Release, The Silent Committee

Imperfect Machines.

15/09/2023 //
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The Silent Committee EP, ‘Imperfect Machines’, makes it’s debut on streaming sites from today!

If you like it enough it is still available to download from Bandcamp for a very affordable price.

If you’re the streaming kind then Spotify, Apple, Tidal, YouTube etc. will see you right.

Also as with the other releases lately, you can dance to them on TikTok or soundtrack bizarre reels on Instagram.

Imperfect Machines was the last lengthy and fully conceived/planned release from the project back in 2019. It sought to be the acoustic album, utilising no synthesis or electronic instruments – heavily relying on upright piano, viola, voice and various string instruments. The acoustic were ultimately toyed with by effects pedals and laptop maniupation, but the acoustic sounds do still shine through.

Since the release of this EP the project has lay kind of dormant, releasing tunes for piano day and odd songs here and there.

But all that will change in October. Stay tuned!

CFx

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Categories Archive, BFW Recordings, Chris Fordham, Release, Silent Committees Music, The Silent Committee

Memory #11

12/09/2023 //
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‘Maybrain‘ was an EP by my singer songwriter project Violet’s Gone.

It was the result of a challenge set by WeeklyEP presenter Cody Swanson/Noisycrane to produce a complete EP within 7 days. The podcast project he was doing started in the coronavirus lockdown in Spring 2020. Some friends of mine from the days of MySpace, Aubben Reneé and Jose Delhart were a featured artist one of the weeks and having heard their songs and some of the other artists featured on other weeks episodes, I needed to get involved. The other motivation was that Violet’s Gone II had reached a stand still in production, so being forced to drop that, write a bunch of new stuff and record it with little to no time to edit – may have just been the kick up the arse I needed.

It worked! I like to think.

Me and Cody had a great chat at length about where inspiration comes from, about alternate tuning, colour perception, LSD and P.T. Anderson movies.

The songs of the EP I think came out pretty well given the limitations, and two of the songs at least still make for regular performance at my gigs to this day.

The podcast is still available on Spotify. If you like the songs enough, they are available on Bandcamp.

Violet’s Gone is currently not present on streaming platforms, and may not be for the forseable future.

Categories Archive, Chris Fordham

Memory #10

05/09/2023 //
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Took A Walk

This song was a real slog to make. It’s lyrics are a little cliche, for sure. The tune is simple. The repetitive refrain of ‘time to save’ was sung in four part harmony without looping or pitch correcting – I sang every single one!

It wasn’t a happy time but the song, I think, kind of pulled me through.

The EP still exists on BFW Recordings website as a free download, and the music video still resides on YouTube and below. I do intend to soon either remaster or completely re-record the song with my improved recording abilities and will probably put it online sometime on or around October 10th.

For now though, ‘enjoy’ the original in all it’s awkward and difficult glory!

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Categories Archive, BFW Recordings, Chris Fordham, Release, Uncategorized

zero. (MMXXIII)

01/09/2023 //
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The Silent Committee’s 2014 album ‘zero.’ has undergone the remaster and expanded reissue treatment.

All 10 of the original tracks have been edited to boost volume, improve dynamics and just sound better than they have ever sounded before. The reissue also compiles all 3 songs recorded for the BFW Recordings series ‘Album In A Day’ and improves their audio. There are then 2 more compilation project recordings, possibly unheard of before due to their obscurity.

As always: for purchasing the album Bandcamp is your best bet – cheapest, comes with high quality artwork and liner notes, and your purchase supports the artist directly! The Bandcamp page itself features a write up on each track individually about inspiration, instrumentation and background on all the songs makings.

If you’re more the streaming kind then please support The Silent Committee over on Spotify, Apple, Tidal, YouTube etc. Any plays and shares help us out.

If you feel like setting a TikTok or Instagram reel to these strange electronic/ambient tunes then they should be available on there too! (I’d love to see what they end up soundtracking)

1.opal 02:50
2.façade 06:55
3.abode 03:15
4.chimera 02:58
5.workhorse 04:11
6.aura 05:59
7.wallflower 03:16
8.ember 04:09
9.perfect 01:43
10.comrade 05:04
11.+tive 05:24
12.Caffeine 03:44
13.News From Nowhere 02:44
14.Plastic Symphony 01:53
15.Time For Joy (demo) 01:20

CFx

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Categories BFW Recordings, Chris Fordham, Release, Silent Committees Music, The Silent Committee

Memory #9

29/08/2023 //
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Enki were a huge part of the Northampton music scene throughout the 2000’s and early 2010’s.

I joined the band playing bass in around 2008 after spotting a poster tacked up in The Labour Club that said something along the lines of – must like playing 7 minute songs with only one chord. I was intrigued, looked them up online and was hooked on the their debut EP.

We played many, many gigs. Mostly around Northamptonshire itself, popping up at The Umbrella Fair, Bardic Picnic, White Ark festivals and many others. Our live performances took us further afield with Liverpool and London being particular highlights.

There were numerous live and studio recordings made during our time together that we distributed randomly on CD. We were all into DIY music production and made a good number of songs. The one that got some good attention towards the end of our run was a song called ‘Beta Moon’, that saw airtime on BBC Northamptons Weekender Introducing programme and is featured on the soundcloud link below. The band saw a few lineup shifts throughout the 8 years we gigged. This song features Mike Goff on vocals, Thomas Nightingale on guitar and backing vocals, me on bass and backing vocal, and Owen Copps on drums. This recording also features the viola playing of Roz Webber.

The band never officially split up. We’re more on hiatus due to geographic problems and real life happening. There have been efforts to reunite and jam as recently as 2022 with a planned festival appearance, but unfortunately that return event was cancelled completely, leaving us without a venue. Maybe next time. The various members meet up and talk online about projects, so who knows maybe some recordings in the near future, either as Enki or something else.

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Categories Archive, Chris Fordham, Enki

Memory #8

22/08/2023 //
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Here, we are going right back! Way, way back! Around 2005/2006 time was where it all began. A young Chris dressed head-to-toe in black singing sad, mostly acoustic songs into the microphones at Beck Studio in Wellingborough. The Beck Studio sessions never got released to the world because I felt my inexperience shone through a little too much. The first songs that made it onto the internet were 4-track cassette demos and then from these demos I returned to a studio. Hot Rock in Northampton was recommended to me by Stevie Jones of the Wildfires so I sought them out to complete a demo CD of ten songs playing acoustic guitar, bass, lap-steel and vocals. I’m still proud of it as a whole but for similar reasons to the Beck sessions they’re not out there in the world anymore; I was young and not fully developed as a songwriter and definitely not as a singer. It was still the days when MySpace reigned supreme that these songs got any air.

I’m contemplating putting together a compilation of earlier songs via Bandcamp in the near future and may well include a song or two from these sessions if I feel they can still work and survive in the real world.

Below is a song that was written for the Beck recording sessions – although the version shared was recorded around 6 years later at home, with a more focus approach on production.

CF

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Categories Archive, Chris Fordham, In The Studio

Memory #7

15/08/2023 //
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Today I’m casting my mind back to 2011.

To Bury A Ghost was the music project of Jonathan Stolber. It’s best described as an alternative rock or art rock outfit.

I got to know Jon through a shared interest in effects pedals and home recording. We kept appearing on the same review blogs and local music broadcasts and eventually caught up to perform together. His band had just released their debut EP The Hurt Kingdom and he was looking to take the songs on the road. I performed guitar, keyboard, glockenspiel and backing vocals in the live lineup. The poster above was for our short tour as a four piece band. The gigs were loud and fierce! It would be good to do this again sometime.

After the tour had finished we set to recording some alternate versions of the EP songs and demoing some new stuff. The demo we set loose into the world was called Dancing With Epileptic and can be heard/downloaded still at bandcamp.

We still hang out and tinker with writing and recording sounds. Jons latest solo project is called The Holy Road and is well worth your time to give a listen too.

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Categories Archive, Chris Fordham, Live, To Bury A Ghost

Memory #6

08/08/2023 //
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The Divine Undone.

This is a hard one to share. I had such high hopes for a future with this band, but it wasn’t to be. We had an albums worth of songs rehearsed and tight…but it lasted two gigs and one home recording demo session. We were all busy with other projects and real life stuff that it sadly never took off.

The project had the psychedelia of Enki and the rough edges of Snakeman. We were a four piece built around the songwriting and guitar/saxophone playing of Kirsty Wilkins (The Lunar Trixies). Featuring members of Presley Johnson (Alex George on drums) , Enki (me on bass), and Jontys Jam Night regular, Mario on guitar it was a bit of a Northampton supergroup back in 2014.

We at times sounded like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix…anything with that late 60’s psych edge. I played a home made fretless bass for this band that was named Ragwitch.

Some of the songs would go on to be performed by new band The Ginhouse Gypsies, Muddy Boots and The Lunar Trixies. All that remains of our short time as a band are a bunch of photographs, one of the coolest gig posters I’ve ever been attached to, and a live recording that I shall share snippets of in due time.

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Categories Archive, Chris Fordham, Enki, Snakeman 3, The Divine Undone
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