Fnurgled is here.

Well, I can now go ahead and make the announcement that has probably been chinese whispers for some time: Fnurgled, my first collection of songs, is in pre-release, aka available at CafePress.

Boasting a gestation period that would make the vet in the elephants' enclosure at London Zoo more than a tad concerned, it's what I consider to be the highlights of the last year's output.

"So," you might say: "I've heard it all before. What's new here?"

On one level, nothing. Yes, all the tracks are tracks that I inflicted on you at one point or another.

On another level, plenty.

Some of the tracks have been remixed - others have had the vocals retouched or even redone; and they've all been mastered for CD. Beautifully, I might add - and it's the first time since started making music that I've dared to relinquish creative control.

A word about that mastering: it's pulled together a disparate collection of sounds into songs that have become finished objects of a quality I couldn't have dreamed of, and done the same for the album as a whole.

You know how you can get a bit sick of the sound of your own songs sometimes? Perhaps not? Well, I certainly do. But this collection, lushly mastered as it is, is a non-stop on my iPod - listened to at times with a "is this really me?" proud disbelief.

So - the track listing:

i wish i was a theremin
Lucky You
Camoflage
Wait For Me
The Same Way Too
Rain In The Summertime
Everything Has A Price
Guilty
Hey, You!
Take Me Away
Song For The Lost
Spun Out
Waiting
Morning After

Availability? Right now, like I said, at CafePress. It's also available in my artist store for the comforting, round-number price of ten English pounds: I shall be getting stock in soon for personal delivery!

Later? CD Baby. After that, iTunes, etc. Then, the world shall be mine.

Watch this space. And, er... don't forget the rest of the merchandise.

China releases panda to the wild

They what? I mean... The... I...

Jeeze!

No. Hang on.They gave him a GPS device. And training.

It's cool.

The one-eyed stare of fear...

The one-eyed stare of fear...
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

The view at the point my heart starts racing. Half the time I have nothing but a sketchy idea of a melody and some scratched-out scrawl on a piece of paper. Most times it works, sometimes it doesn't. Then there's the times the harmonies just flow and time flies. I barely remember those times. It's like something's working me. Something I don't pretend to understand. Something I've no desire to understand.

Dress your Ferret

And why not? If it mauls your finger in the style of the late great Richard Whiteley, then all the better - because you probably deserve it.

Painfully funny, and all the better for it being real.

Surely

Verily, the lad's at it again.

Surely

FREE MUSIC!

Surely is the first song in ages that I actually sat down with a guitar and wrote in the popularly understood way - and you can tell. A supernatural tale of domestic invisibility, it sits somewhere Ben Jonson's Volpone and Anthony Minghella's film Truly, Madly, Deeply in lyrical content - and, even though I say so myself, it's poptastic.

Go on: download it before I start actually selling my stuff.

And on that subject: iTunes users can now buy a Sp3ccylad song. No, really. I'm Talking About You has been released as part of a compilation album linked to a radio show out in the Carolinas that I get played on, called The Great American Music Hour, Vol. 2 that is out on Lost Cat Records. If you wish to buy it (or just check out my story!) I've popped in the iTunes music store link above.

Pimp My Snack

Us Brits love our sweeties. I believe we eat more of them than any other nationality, including those lovable cuckoo-clock peddlars the Swiss. So - what could be better than big fat snacks. And when I say, big and fat, I mean BIG. And FAT.

That's the rationale behind Pimp My Snack, a laudable attempt to make colossal versions of all your favourite chocolate bars. It seems to be an ongoing project, so I shall be going back for more.

Choco-tastic.

Battling the tapioca tube - or How We Used To Live

I was fiddling with the Wayback Machine last night (actually looking for a 9-year-old photo of me in Bridlington, of all places) and while I was doing so, a friend in California pointed me in the direction of a fantastic piece of stuff.

Whilst looking at the links off it, I found a page I'd almost forgotten about - The Random Masturbation Synonym Generator. Hit the button and you get a synonym for masturbation (although most of them fit more properly into the category of euphemisms if you want to get picky).

I was playing with it (eep!) and I suddenly realised "Hey! This is how I used to amuse myself when Bill Clinton was President!" Suddenly, it all seems such a long, long time ago...

Not safe for work unless you work in a masturbation synonym factory.

More Pieces Than People

More music from the newly productive House of Sp3ccylad:

More Pieces Than People
FREE MUSIC, DAMMIT!

A bit different for me, this. Mostly acapella, it counterpoints a growing discontent with the shape of things in the wider world with the knowledge that, however good we try to be, events will conspire to make our personal lives appear no better than the events we try to transcend - that trying to do absolute good will always be tempered by somoeone else's personal perspective.

So: do you live vicariously and look good? Or do you do what you need and watch people play wounded (with undoubtable sincerity) while the world wags its collective finger?

And can you stand the pain it causes: even if it is more self-inflicted than the "victim" claims?

The Same Way Too, revisited

Well, I've remade an old song and stripped it back to basics - and here it is:

The Same Way Too
FREE MUSIC!

It catches me in sombre mood, taking the song away from its pop roots and back to the despair I felt when I wrote it. I'd say "enjoy!", but that's not quite right.

Appreciate.