Desire Avenue

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Love the cover, and the title!

The cover is very distinctive.
It looks like a photo from 'The Abyss'

The original concept for the cover was to re-enact the medium sitting scene in The Legend Of Hell House with the weird strands of ectoplasm coming out of my hands. But it was going to be tricky to do convincingly so we opted for the weird lightning shots instead sort of a bit like the creepy bit from The Entity.

It was fun to do as I've never worked on artwork with someone before but I think this has paid off quite nicely. I wanted the cover to reflect part of the music vibe and inspirations from old 1970's horror film soundtracks, particularly The Legend Of Hell House whose synthesised score is still among the creepiest music I have ever heard. It's still got a long way to go til it's finished but it's going to be worth the wait. I really promise this time too! Taking my time has proven wise.

I've not checked this thread for a while, thanks for the additions to the artwork Aermancer (where are you these days??), but we've decided to keep the main cover blank. This album really isn't designed to bring me any success (ha, as if anyway!), it's more a labour of love, now at 3 years and counting of solid work and fund raising to create one definitive record.

I've had quite a bit of success selling my songs this year, which has enabled upgrading of my recording facilities, and recording is going well, if slowly. The final track listing has not been finalised, but I have now around 30 songs banked up and when i do pick the listing only 10 will make the cut.

Having listened to my old albums as part of improving and avoiding past mistakes, I've noticed that I tend to have the flaw of going with a particular style musically for an album, my unreleased debut Songs For September from 1999 was piano driven and minimal, and my refusal to flesh the songs out caused it's demise, whereas the fierce metallic electronic rock of So I Have For You, or as I like to think of it The One That Cost Me My Career, was brutal, angry and an exhaustively self indulgent listen.

I tried going 'pop' for Paperface, and now hate that album so much I don't even know where the masters are anymore. Deadwaves was nothing more than demos, and Cold Chemistry was a collision of too many ideas at once.

To be brutally honest, I only really ever got it right with Out Of Breath, but the circumstances around that album, namely a significantly damaging nervous breakdown, rendered it for too long a period as too personal to ever release commercially, screwing up the distribution deal I managed to secure at the time.

So for the last 3 years I really have been treading very carefully. Illness this year, really took the pace out of recording too.

So The Haunting... is going to be probably the last album I will make, and therefore also will be my definitive. One of the guys from Three Swept, whom I have worked with a few times, reckons I should call it Going Out With A Bang

The album's sound takes itself from the parts of my previous albums where I briefly got it right and brings them together. The songs are written from a personal perspective but shaped around the themes of some of my favourite films, taking my narrative and twinning it with an influential movie. The concept is working brilliantly, and some of the films that have provided inspiration are rather unusual. I'm particularly proud of A Snake Of June and Ils, the latter a crawling industrial downtempo number of jealousy, resentment and bitterness.

At the current point in time I don't see the album being near to completed until mid to late 2010. Because of session work I do and sometimes going on tour, recording has had to fit in to financially viable time slots. It makes the process longer but then I have more time to think and develop my ideas and songs.

So I will keep you posted on my progress and you'll be the first to hear the results.

Well, good luck with the project Daniel.
Is there anyway we could hear the 30 songs so that we could vote for our fave 10? That might make your final selection process a bit easier.

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Run Baby Run has a very catchy chorus. I havn't heard the song in years though.
I wouldn't play Almost A Smile here though, you might get lynched by the purists brigade.