​March 2025 Blog Post: Better Than The Book and studio build updates (+ a sneak peek at the WIP album art for $10 Patreon supporters), "Is This What We Want?" collaborative "silent" album protesting UK A.I. laws, more videos + more!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to spring. It's been a super busy month over here with some trips in between working frantically to get this Better Than The Book album ready for release (more on that in a moment), and getting the studio set up too (also more on that in a moment). More news to share along with some more videos as usual so let's get to it!

First of all an update on how Better Than The Book's upcoming album preparations are going! It's been much slower than I'd hoped for many reasons but things are getting there (It's a HUGE project). Album credits are mostly drafted up along with the finalised lyric sheets on Bandcamp and the artwork is well on the way to completion too! As it stands all the final penciling is finished, all the final line-work penning is done too, and it's just some shading, clean-up and lettering left to take care of before it's time to take it to the scanner. After that there'll be some cropping and digital clean-up to do and very thankfully, my twin Eamon has lent me one of his old graphics tablets to help with that. Thanks Eamon! I'm sure this'll make things much easier than my usual mouse clean-up. I cannot wait to share this artwork with you as much like the audio, I think it's my best yet (certainly from an attention to detail point of view) and is going to blow your socks off! If you're $10 Patreon supporter though, you've got a sneak peek collection of work in progress, non-draft artwork photos to look forward to this time. Hope you enjoy it!

Next up on the news, some more studio updates. Again this has been slow progress for many reasons including ordering a flat packed shelf but finding a piece missing and then having to wait an extra 2 weeks for this tiny part to arrive to finish it... With that finally sorted though, the studio is now well equipped with a load of shelves at the back filled with vinyls, CDs, Magazines, charms, files/admin stuff, art supplies, tools, spare parts, manga and more! Next up will be to sort the final few acoustic tiles so I can get this room fully treated and calibrated! I'm playing around a bit with stands too for all the instruments to be effectively out on display and ready to use (while taking up as little room as possible) but that's proving a little difficult at the moment... I'll get to it when I can (Better Than The Book artwork is top priority at the moment)! On top of that after a visit down south to the overwhelmingly generous Martin (who I'm really not sure where I'd be musically without), I have now finally (after almost a decade living without one) acquired a full 88note (controller) keyboard again, as he had recently upgraded his own and wanted his old one to go to a good new home. It's been amazing to finally be able to play piano with the fully compass of the keyboard again, and after some catch-up practice I'm positive I'll be recording some proper piano compositions again very soon! Oh and before anyone asks, no piano and organ are not the same. They're more akin to a spoon and a fork (for lack of a better analogy). Fun times a'commin'!

Next and an interesting piece of news which I think everyone should know about, especially those of you making ANY creative content (artwork, music, writing, etc...) in the UK specifically. In February, myself and over 1000 musicians jointly released a "silent" album title "Is This What We Want?" to protest the UK government's planned changes to copyright law, which would essentially hand the life's work of the country's musicians (and more) to AI companies for free, without compensation, consent, or any real framework implemented to opt out. Not only are they stealing from musicians and artist as above, but they're using our work and passion to train models which aim to replace us. This is unacceptable.

"Is This What We Want?" is an album of recordings of empty studios, which is a stark illustration of the impact it'll have on the music industry and musicians if the government's plans go ahead. You can listen to and read all about it here and all profits from the album will be donated to a musician's charity. You can also see a list of all the "contributors" to the album where I'm listed as Jabun alongside such musicians as Damon Albarn, Imogen Heap, Hans Zimmer and many more people. On a side note, if you're into field recordings and ambient sounds, it's actually a very cool album musically (though harrowing). Here's to hoping it gets the message across to the UK Government:

https://www.isthiswhatwewant.com/

Track list:
1) The
2) British
3) Government
4) Must
5) Not
6) Legalise
7) Music
8) Theft
9) To
10) Benefit
11) AI
12) Companies

Finally for this months news it's the usual video round up! I didn't actually meet my recording target (again) last month, and with this April marking a full 2 years of releasing 2 video a week consistently and without break, I'll be announcing a reduction / step back from "content creation" after that 2 year mark. Details to come, but in the mean time here's the update playlist and a list of the latest additions:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWEmqIhrNPvQTBoOjZdKLgL4ecTvLz6sm

• New Studio Part 4: IT'S ALL HERE
• Jazz Bass Series Parallel Mod Tone Test
• Testing Guitar with Ashdown Bass amp
• The Seeker - The Who Guitar & Vocal Cover (Rush Feedback)
• Crunch guitar tone on Ashdown Bass amp
• Cleaner guitar tone on Ashdown Bass amp
• Messy Combo Organ Jams through my Ashdown Bass amp
• Combo organ through Leslie AND Bass amp at the same time!

This coming month we're back to some slide guitar and alternative tunings, playing some bass with the whammy pedal, and more! Hope you're looking forward to it!

That about wraps things up for this post! I'll be trying to finish the artwork for Better Than The Book's upcoming album soon which also means the second single will be due very soon too! On top of that there's a tonne of stuff still to do setting up the studio, as well as admin to prep for the BTTB album release. No shortage of busy times at the moment, but exciting stuff to come soon! Until then, thanks as always for supporting my music and more however you can and hope you enjoy what's to come! Take care!

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