Hope you've all had a great week, and certainly for those in the UK it's been a hot one! Herne Bay is still as nice as ever, and a little cooler (temperature-wise) than earlier this week which is good. Things are started to progress with regards settling in too, as now I have a lovely IKEA desk (coffee table) to work on which has made tasks a lot more comfortable. Still on a limited set-up, but I've never let limitations hold me back. The move has been met with a few other problems though. While the pigeons in the ventilation from last week seem to have moved out, they've left behind a worse problem... mites, and this week has been a virtually constant battle trying to get things sorted. It's mostly sorted (contained) now, but we're still waiting for a proper solution from the landlord. Sad times, but still pushing through. Anyway, let's get onto some audio news!

Firstly this week, I'd like to present you a brand new track, "Postcards"! It's just a short one, and was written for Pond5's first video scoring contest earlier this month. Unfortunately no prizes for me this time around, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. It was certainly interesting listening to the winning entries though, as they sounded nothing like how I thought they would for the footage we were given. Just goes to show that very different things go on in each other's heads when linking visual stimuli to sound. This piece was a real pleasure and adventure to work on, as it was my first time working in the genre of post-rock, despite listening to it occasionally for a number of years now. It's short and simple, but I'm really pleased with the overall vibe and sound quality, and it exercised a lot of techniques I'd never usually think of doing in terms of mixing and sound design which really payed off for the final piece I think. Great fun! Anyway, without further delay, here's the new track, "Postcards" I hope you enjoy it:
​

In other news this week, myJabun SoundCloud page has been running out of space recently, so in order to make room for "Postcards", the Crow's Wing Vol. 1 EP (remasters of recordings from my teenage band) has been removed. Don't worry though, you can still listen to all the classic tracks from Crow's Wing on YouTube. Work-wise this week, I've finally been working with Fun Station 4 Kids on some new material which is looking awesome, educational and fun! Not sure on the ETA for this project, but I'm aiming to finish my work for this current animation this weekend, so hopefully not too long. I'll certainly be sure to share it when it's done though. Fun times!

That's about it for this week. Next week I'll be heading back down to Sussex for a few weeks to sort out some more things (and see the new Suicide Squad film which looks kickass), so the next update will be from the original JabunAudio headquarters. I know I'll have a little more Fun Station 4 Kids work for me this coming week, but other than that, I'm not sure what'll be going on. Looking forward to seeing the family and playing some bass again though! Anyway, that's it for this week. Hope you enjoy the new track, see you next week and thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio. Take care. 

Hope you've all had a great 2 weeks since the last blog post and boy do I have some big news for you today. It's not going to be a long post this week (difficult to beat the last one, haha!), but there's certainly a lot to share. Lets get started!

Firstly and the biggest news this week, JabunAudio is moving! That's right! After over 3 years in Burgess Hill, Sussex, a ton of adventures, animations and tracks, the time finally seemed right to mix things up a little and take a leap into a new area. A huge thanks to everyone in the Sussex scene for helping me grow as a producer and a business, my family, friends and local clients too. Since most of my work is remote anyway, the location change will hopefully not mean a substantial dip in work, so keep sending stuff my way and I'll do my best to help.

So where is JabunAudio moving you ask? The answer is, Herne Bay, Kent, a sunny quiet seaside town just over 2 hours drive north-east. Not too far, but not quite a stone's throw away either. Currently, I'm just testing the water before making a final decision, but if all goes to plan I hope to be fully settled in by the end of September. Exciting times! 

Unfortunately during this limbo period of approximately 2 months, some JabunAudio services will have to be put on hold, and the work bookings schedule may be a little turbulent over the next few weeks (August especially) too since I'll be flitting back and forth between Sussex and Kent occasionally to attend to things. I'll be trying to run as many services I can during this time period, but until further notice I won't be able to take bookings for: 

• Session bass guitar or acoustic guitar work (reduced selection of equipment for electric guitar work too)
• Session vocals or voiceover recording. Voice clean-up and mixing WILL still be running though
• Session cello, balalaika and other acoustic instruments
• Foley recording
• Basically anything that involves me recording with a microphone

These are simply because I've yet to move the relevant equipment to the new Herne Bay location. I'm certainly very much missing having a bass at close hand at the moment... hopefully only for a few weeks. Recording clean-up, mixing, mastering (including for post-production), review and most composition /arrangement services should be running mostly as normal, so please send me a message and I'll do my best to help.

And speaking of compositions, let's get onto the next bit of news. Last week, I composed, recorded and produced a  short piece called "Postcards" for a video scoring contest by Pond5 which I'm very pleased with. It's just over a minute long and is in a genre I've never really worked with before, Post Rock, though I've listened to a lot of it in the past. Very fun and I hope to share it with you next week once the competition has come to an end and the winners have been announced. Hope you like it and stay tuned for next week to hear it in full!

That's it for this week. I imagine these next few months are going to be a little crazy, but already there are a few cool things in the pipeline so I hope to share those soon. In the mean time, hope you all have a good week to come and stay tuned for the new track "Postcards" coming next week. Thanks as always for supporting JabunAudio and until next time, take care!  

After conquering the ridge the cloud came down again and we were left with a tough choice. Ahead of us we could see 2 vague tracks in the snow, once leading up the first peak, and one leading around it to what seemed like over the edge of that cliff we'd been climbing along. Needless to say although it seemed less steep I was NOT going to  follow the path towards the cliff edge when all I could see ahead of us was some faint rocks in a sea of white, so instead we headed further up the mountain towards the first peak. Coming down the other side, it was still very misty so we couldn't see the 2nd peak staring at us right away, but by lord it was tall when we did see it! Soo much taller than the one we'd just climbed, and the only way up was another steep climb through the snow. ​
​

The beginning of the descent was met with some strange and eerie vibes which would gradually increase as we continued further. As soon as we stepped out of the cabin, it seemed like the temperature had plummeted and as opposed to the attire of just t-shirts which we were wearing on the way up, we were quickly reaching for coats, gloves and all the warm stuff we could find as soon as we stepped out. The cloud had come again too and looking down the mountain all we could see was a field of white... As we headed off, the lone keeper of the hut ran out yelling "STOP STOP, that route leads to the glacier, you need to head the other way". It's a good thing he noticed too, because glaciers are no place for people without the knowledge and equipment to deal with them, not to mention it'd be a LOOOONG walk home that way. We managed to find our route again and began the descent back towards the second peak, hoping that soon the cloud would clear and we'd be able to see it.
          I mentioned before that we'd climbed many steep snowy slopes on the way up, so I was very happy when my Auntie Siv unveiled her time-killing master plan for our snowy descent! Instead of walking down, we'd be wearing bin bags and sliding down, and boy could you slide down FAST with those (REALLY FAST)! There were only a few places where we could do this mind you, but it was great tuning 5 minute walks into 30 second thrill-rides! Great plan Auntie Siv :D On our descent, pretty much once we'd gotten past the 2nd peak, it was almost clear skies all the way home too which made for some amazing pictures! Unfortunately, I maxed out my phone's memory on the ascent so no pics for me, but the other members of the team managed to get some. Fun times!... 
          ...Was what I was thinking for the first half of the trip down. After that, things started to get less enjoyable, and a lot more scary. After taking the easy route around the first peak, we once again reached that vertigo inducing ridge, which was even less fun going down than it was climbing up. It was a slow and careful descent down that part of the mountain as we all had to be careful about our footing on the sharp and often unstable rocks. After almost 12 hours of walking, people were getting tired too, and the climb down was one heck of a pain in the legs... we took a long while on that ridge. Things were starting to get eerily quiet too. Climbing up there were a fair few people around as I'd already mentioned, but it being this late, we barely saw anyone on the mountain with us. Unsettling to say the least.
          After passing that ridge and trying our best to keep up the pace to get home, one of my shoes broke in the snow (the soul coming away from the shoe) and I ended up trying it back on with strip of the bag I'd been using to slide down the snowy areas. The quick fix held after one time not tying it on tight enough, but I'd need to tread carefully after that. Coming over the edge of the plateau to that first steep snow climb too, a beautiful scene lit the skies as the sunset painted the tops of the mountains in front of us a bright pink. Shortly afterwards, we descended into the shadow of the mountain we'd just climbed and towards what we thought would be the final and simple last leg of our return journey.
          That steep snowy slope was difficult to descend safely as it was so easy to loose your footing. I even lost balance once finding myself sliding down the mountain involuntarily in the same fashion as when I was wearing the plastic bag. A few of us tried walking on the jagged rocks instead, but they proved just as difficult to climb, so we chose to continue with the snowy path. Towards the end of the slope we finally saw our base camp in the distance and rejoiced at the thought of being home within a few minutes. The lack of trees and skewed perspective was making fools of us once again though.
          Shortly after the slope we recognised the grassy and mossy terrain and small springs which had greeted us at the start of our journey. A welcome sight indeed. We even bumped into a small group of mountain sheep wandering around and grazing which was really cool. I think those were the last few photos taken before the sun disappeared and not even the tips of the mountains were illuminated for us to see by, and that's when things started to scary.
          As I'm sure some of you will know, Norway is very north and on this day the 25th of June (also my dad's Birthday) , just after the summer solstice, night is practically non-existent. That is to say it's never fully dark. I'm definitely thankful that we weren't climbing in the pitch black, but certainly I would NOT recommend this adventure at twilight either.
          With very little light, over 13 hours of physically demanding walking already under our belt, very little water / snacks left, and our base camp seemly so close yet so far, its no wonder that things were starting to get uncomfortable. The red "T"s we were supposed to be following were practically impossible to see in the dark and the even our team was getting hard to see too. My Uncle Phil was wearing black, as was my brother Eamon, while Vibecke was in a dark mossy green and I was in grey. The only person who stood out was my Auntie Siv in her bright pink jacket (sensible!) and patience was very quickly fracturing the group. There were a few minor arguments about which route we should take and trying to recognise where we'd come from during our ascent, and with it only getting darker and exhaustion setting in, things were getting really scary... If you were agoraphobic or afraid of the dark, this could be your nightmare and honestly, I can very clearly see where the legends of trolls come from in such conditions as this. 
          One foot in front of the other. Keep on going. Not long. These were the things I'm sure running through our heads at this point. Eventually we started to see some of the landmarks we recognised and we were definitely getting lower and closer to base camp. We had to be, right? The bushes grew bigger, there was more vegetation and it was clear we were getting there. Insanely enough, some people passed us who were on their way UP the mountain to climb at midnight?! They had head torches and everything! I couldn't say I'd like to do that. 
          We finally reached the river by base camp after what seemed like forever and my dad was waiting there with a relieved expression on his face when we did. We exchanged stories of the trip, crossed the bridge and my mum took some pictures which most likely have either the most forced or genuinely relieved smiles captured on them. The time was about 12:45am, over 15 hours since we'd set off. 
          I immediately got changed and took a shower when I got back to the cabin and thankfully we'd been saved some moose burger steaks for dinner which were lovely. Chatting over with the whole team together again and reflecting on the trip, we were very lucky with the way things had gone down. It there had been a storm or even the clouds had come down again while we descended, we could have been well and truly stuck and it's a miracle that things didn't change considering the rapid shifting of weather during the day. Going to bed that night, I could not look out at that twilight mountain landscape outside the window. It genuinely terrified me, and whenever I closed my eyes I could just see scenes from those final few hours of the descent, and hear the sound of footsteps echoing in my ears. I was exhausted, but I wasn't going to sleep well either.
          Thankfully the crippling anxiety of the climb was erased by the morning and replaced with the most killer leg ache ever (and I thought after the London to Brighton was bad!) and sore face from sunburn too... (My parents had the lotion with them when they turned back...). Thankfully I say, hehe!? I couldn't deny that the mountain looked beautiful when I looked back up it in the well lit morning light and after packing the bags it was time to say farewell to Galdhøpiggen and Spiterstulen. My final act was to quickly send a postcard to my dear girlfriend Eva from the base camp reception, then it was back on the minibus and down back to Oslo. What a trip!

I guess that was the end of the main adventure, but there was still plenty of the Norway visit to go! The minibus journey was mainly spent sleeping, but when we arrived in Lom, it'd be a few hours until we caught the bus back to Oslo so we had some amazing cinnamon buns, went to a toilet built out of firewood with a chainsaw hanging above the door and a sink made from a circular saw blade, and lazed around for a bit. The bus journey back was filled with more sleeping too and when we finally got back to Oslo, we waved a farewell to Vibecke before taking another bus back to my uncle and aunt's house and ordered a lovely late takeaway before sleeping even more!
          The next day was a great day out (again with achy legs) in Oslo city center! The main highlight of the day was an awesome 2 hour boat tour around the Oslo Fjord which was as educational as it was entertaining (a lot on both accounts!). After that we met up with Vibecke again with her 2 daughters and had an awesome Norwegian Indian curry which was delicious and very different to the stuff we get over in the UK. After that it was time to go home and catch the second half of England's football defeat at the hands of Iceland (I was playing synths for some of that though so I wasn't really tuned in). The Icelandic commentator's reaction at the end was priceless though! I don't think I've heard anyone on TV scream that high before (not unless they were in a power-metal band!)
          The final day in Norway was spent walking around the local lakes near my Aunt and Uncle's house which was simply beautiful! Water so clear that you could see the fish, and ducks and geese so tame that they'd come right up to you. It was a nice contrast to the mountain of a few days ago and a lovely bit of fresh air (very hot too). After that was some last minute shopping including (and Bob, if you're reading, you'll be happy about this) some cloudberry jam and lots of other cool snacks and things you can't get over in the UK. Gosh they have so many good snacks and food you can't get here!
          A final and lovely meal together (Pro Tip: Cloudberry jam on buttered brioche or croissant is AMAZING!), then it was on the bus, back to the airport, another small flight delay and back on the plane to the UK. It was strange looking down at my passport and seeing "European Union" on it, the accuracy of which had sort of changed over the 5 days since I'd left the country... gosh so much had changed since I was gone but let's leave the political commentary out of this blog post.
          The flight back was incredible. I got an amazing view of the Oslo Fjord from above and an even more incredible sight above the clouds while we were flying over the UK: A circular rainbow with the projected shadow of our plane onto a cloud right in the center! Wish I'd have taken a picture of that. Well I guess the rest of the trip was fairly normal. We landed, picked up our bags (no more lost) and  went home where the final bag would arrive a few days later. All in all it was an incredible trip and certainly I'd love to go back to Norway soon! A huge thanks to my aunt and uncle for putting us up for the trip as well as my parents, brother Eamon, and Vibecke for the amazing company during the adventure! What an excellent adventure it was! 

And I guess that's all the stories of adventure in June told now! I hope you all enjoyed it and hopefully I can go on some more adventures soon so I can share more stories with you! Holiday's over, now time for some usual JabunAudio news:

Firstly, I'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who's supported Better Than The Book on SoundCloud since I launched the page a few weeks ago! So many amazing comments on the music, a lot of which have compared the tunes to that of my heroes such as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Blink 182 and Green Day (Someone even said my voice sounded kinda like Mark Hoppus'! Wow!). Anyway, I'm very pleased to say that the Better Than The Book SoundCloud Page recently exceeded 100 followers. Exciting times! Thanks again everyone and I hope to bring you some more Ska-punk anthems soon! 

Next and finally this week, on Tuesday evening I attended a quick, fun and very spontaneous live stream with Hikarian Animations, whom you may remember I worked with on the "Tales of Zale" series. This one wasn't Tales of Zale related however, though there was some awesome related stuff shown off during the stream. This time we were joined by our usual host, Sif, another regular, Victor (TheSilleGuy), myself obviously and another great animator Grant Wooley who was a pleasure to meet! Surprisingly enough we managed to keep on the topic of animation for quite some time before meandering off to talk about Pokemon Go and the Danish intro to Steven Universe. Great fun and if you're interested you can watch our approximately 1 hour long international meet-up on the YouTube link below. Be prepared for the usual silliness!

That's about it for this week and once again I hope you've enjoyed the accounts of my June adventures. I'll actually be away again next week (such is my busy life) so I'm not sure if I'll be writing a post next week. Certainly it'll be late if I do, but hopefully this post was long enough to satisfy your JabunAudio thirst for the time being. Until next time, I hope you all have a great few weeks whatever you get up to (It's the holiday season after all) and as always, thanks for supporting JabunAudio and my other related projects. See you in 2 weeks and take care!

It's been an incredibly active (in a non-audio sense) 2 weeks since the last update, and originally I'd planned to tell you all about it in a single blog post, but after typing up the first big event, it was already pretty long, so I'll be splitting this post over this week and the next. Not much audio work to report, but I've been working out instead so here's part 1 of 2 of my energetic June!

First on the list of achievements in the past two weeks, on Sunday 19th June, I had an amazing time cycling from London to Brighton in order to raise money for the British Heart Foundation! Thanks so much to everyone who came to support us along the route and everyone who sent in a donation too (more on that later), and as promised, here's how it all went (mostly) down:
          Prepping myself with an early night of 9pm, I awoke at around 3:30am after some pretty broken sleep to get ready and munch down a hefty bowl of porridge. At 5am, half the team arrived in a pickup truck with our bikes ready to head off to the starting line at Clapham Common over an hour's drive away. Watching the sun-rise was beautiful as we rode up there, and despite very little sleep, I was feeling wide awake and ready to take the 54 mile ride with a smile! We reached the starting area around 6:15am, unloaded and reassembled our bikes then headed towards the main event where our team of 8 was finally assembled: My Dad who organised the team, my Uncle Tim, my next door neighbour Andy, my dad's friend Rod who organised the pick-up truck, Pete who was a part of our team for the London to Paris until he broke his wrist on the practice ride and couldn't take part (great to be riding with him again), Pongsak a family friend and owner of our local go-to Thai shop and restaurant, my twin brother Eamon, and finally myself. After a quick stretch and some photos we lined up in the starting block ready for the 7am start. I have NEVER seen so many cyclists in my life and hearing the cheers of everyone and over 2000 bike bells dinging in cacophony was an incredibly emotional experience. Countdown to zero and as instructed, we walked over the start line to mount our bikes on the road. A quick check to make sure we were together, then we began what would be a fantastic ride.
          As soon as I started riding though, I realised my breaks weren't working properly, but by then a lot of the team had zoomed off into the distance, and even before we'd made it 2 miles into the ride, I'd already got a flat tire... Good thing my dad and Pete were there, because while I had a spare inner tube, I had no pump... The changeover was pretty swift though and within 15-20 minutes we were back on the road heading south again. Great start!
          It was an amazing experience riding with so many other people but a little nerve-racking too. You'd be surprised (or not) how inconsiderate some people can be for something which is NOT a race, weaving in and out of other cyclists with no warning, undertaking and zooming past with only a few inches gap (not to mention ignoring traffic laws...). I didn't see any, but there were a few accidents along the way apparently. Certainly though, there were lots of helpful marshals along the route to guide the cyclists safely in the right direction and give more help if people needed it.
         There were plenty of break stops along the way too, though our team didn't stop for many at all (mainly just to refill water bottles). After passing through London, the scenery was lovely countryside, a fair few uphills, which I mostly managed to stay on my bike for (see later), and some AMAZING downhills! It was amazing to see people sitting on the streets waving at the passing cyclists and cheering us on as we passed through each town too. As we passed my hometown of Burgess Hill, lots of our neighbours and relatives were waiting at Ditchling Common to greet us and hand out tasty homemade flapjacks. I remember waiting there last year when my dad and Pongsak rode the London to Brighton together. It's great to be on the bike this time around!
          Shortly after that came the infamous 46th mile of the ride, the perilous road to Ditchling Beacon (the highest point in Sussex). Known in the local area and for bike riders as one of the steepest (and long for the steepness) roads you can ride, this long and winding track ascends 158 meters in a mile and even if you haven't just ridden 45 miles is one killer hill! Needless to say I was skeptical I'd be able to do it without getting off and walking, but after seeing my dad start walking it, I figured I should just catch up to him before I dismounted to push my bike up. Well after a while of pedaling frantically, I realised I was NOT going to catch up and so I dismounted to walk, though I DID NOT stop walking. You'd think that walking it would be whole lot easier too, but when you're pushing a bike up a hill that steep, you really start to question which is easier, walking or cycling...  there were a fair few people stopped halfway because it's that difficult a hill even pushing! Funny thing was, at the beginning there were lots of people cycling, but gradually as you got higher, more people were walking until you got to the top and 90+% of people were walking across the final bump. Fortunately that was the hardest part of the ride and that rest of it was plain sailing and downhill to the seafront from there!
          Of course, my Uncle and my bro managed to pedal up there no problem. Mega props to them! 
          After that it was a steady but windy ride across the plateau that is the South Downs before descending rather steeply into Brighton (so much so that we broke the speed limit, I shouldn't be saying so proudly!). The last few miles was a steady straight to the seafront where we regrouped the team efficiently before being greeted quite suddenly by thousands of people on Brighton Seafront cheering all the cyclists to the finish line. We even got medals (and a bottle of water) when we finally crossed it together at around 1:30pm! It was an intensely emotional experience and I'm so happy to have been able to share it with the whole team especially with my dad and brother for Father's Day. The weather couldn't have been better either. What a fantastic day!
          I was pretty zonked out after that so I ended up going to bed at 7pm! It was a great and well deserved rest and of course, my legs were achy like heck for a few days afterwards (but no way near as much as the next challenge! More on that next week)!

In other JabunAudio news, 2 of the animations I worked on with Fun Station 4 Kids have hit some huge milestones recently!​ First up, the channel's debut animation and my debut animation project too, "The Dinosaur Alphabet", just surpassed a whopping 8 MILLION views on YouTube! Secondly, one of our more recent animation projects "Learning Shapes with Baby T-Rex" just hit 1 MILLION views on YouTube as well! Thanks for all the support and love on the Fun Station 4 Kids channel and we hope to bring you some more Dinosaur related lessons and stories soon!

That's all I have to say this week (since the blog post is already very long), but stay tuned for next week for part 2 of 2 of my energetic June: "Climbing Galdhøpiggen: The highest Mountain in Northern Europe!" It was SPECTACULAR but also a pretty crazy story too. Until next week, I hope you all have a good time and thanks as always for supporting my projects and JabunAudio! Take care and see you soon!
​