steve dowling

two songs from new album 'November Songs', due for imminent release on Distilled Records ..... 17 original tracks, including 5 re-worked irish tunes, smothered in multi-layered guitar work! ......... something else i meant to say about these tunes: I used to do a lot of landscape painting, in oils, and i found a while that perseverance was a good substitute for talent; that if i stuck with a painting for long enough (and it had to be there and then, on the spot) that you could go through a sort of threshold, where things seem to happen of their own volition, almost as though the paint seems self-propelled. And i've always been looking for a musical equivalent, where my rudimentary talent need not limit the creative process. So with the tunes, a multi-track recording machine, and plenty of time for reverie, i think i've at last found a way! i do 90% of it just with the one guitar, a nice little Martin 000 model, and just let the texture build up, until other tunes and rhythms start to emerge ... maybe 20 or 30 tracks, adding and taking away. So the pursuit of that single note, which can be so exciting with a load of good players cranking it up, sort of drifts sideways .... a bit like looking at the landscape around the tune, rather than the note ahead. This is an adventure that i'm just starting on, but i feel there are whole new worlds awaiting discovery! .....more about all this, and my own wee world on www.stevedowling.co.uk....My brother Huey has set up a smashing wee studio down here at Bladnoch, with a good 'live' playing area, so the hills (and rivers, woods, pubs etc) are alive with sound of music these days!I'm also involved with the new Bladnoch Folk and Blues Festival, which we're holding at the Bladnoch Distillery in South West Scotland (just across the river where we all work), August 15th to 17th 2008 ... a great and eclectic line-up, details on www.bladnochfestival.co.uk ......various recording and live playing opportunities throughtout the year too ..... great to see y'all there!