How I made my profile: I used Dave & Jay's amazing myspace editor...
Welcome to Guests of Natures Myspace page. Well it all started with a Casio at 8 and
learning to Beatbox at 10 years old for me.. I was a self taught musician and artist and guess I realised my interest when I was about 17 years old and acquired a Korg X5 and a Atari ST picked up from some rough housing estate in south London.
I loved ambient and dance music and took some influence from artists such as Kraftwerk, William Orbit, Cameo, The Associates and countless others including the London Pirate radio of the early 90s which I used to get my mum to record and send up to Dundee where I had moved to study. A few years past and I ended up not getting in to Dundee art college, but was accepted onto a Music and Visual arts course in Brighton.
I loved Brighton from the off and soon started to enjoy it a little too much. I had to repeat a year and eventually passed in 2001 but had not show what I had in me to the full. To edit my life in a sentence it was not until 2006 that I truly realised my ability's as a songwriter and singer as well as producer. Id up till this point always had a million tracks unfinished if any of you know what that's like?
The first tracks that came together was All Night, from 2001 and later Yesterday and Bits and Pieces in 2006. In that same year I was to lose my father and gain a wife.. It was like everything bad and good was contained in that year. Now I had a name and more importantly a direction. The Name Guests of Nature was taken from a painting that my father had given me a year earlier. My father was an antique dealer and had given me a print of a Hundertwasser painting. It contains in block print the text. You are a Guest of Nature, Behave. So there you have it.
I decided in 2007 to go back to study music production and performance. As up until that point I had not really performed live as a singer and wanted the extra production skills. The course was a two year one but I did it all in a year. I paid more attention in that one year than I had the whole of the Degree course.
In the spring of 2008 I came across a web site called CC Mixster.It basically allows Singers to upload acapellas and musicians to mash up samples upload, download you know,all under creative commons licence, which means you can copy/sample as long as you follow the codes of CC.
It was a great shift for me as I was to meet some great producers who all welcomed my Vocal uploads and saw them in a different light. I've had everything from Rock,Jazz,Soul, Hip hop, Ambient,D&B treatments of my songs. I now realised that the best way to receive was to put it out there.. Really happy I did that! The result was that I was to meet two different house producers and DJs from Italy. First there was MusicBump from Naples and then Mendez and Muna from Rimini. Both groups have continued to work alongside me not only remixing past acapellas but also working on new tracks, all via the internet. As we speak Mendez and Muna are working on a video which takes this concept to a visual level as well as working on a new Album. Its a great way of meeting like minded musicians as I have found getting a band together in Brighton was quite difficult.
Like any of the arts, music follows the old rule its not what but who you know. People are impressed with success and well the rest are just trying right? But sure I would have given up years ago if it was just for the fame. I love it though and I'm enjoying it more and more as I discover that success is less about being signed to a label and more about experience and expressing musical ideas. At the moment the futures looking good!
If you are a Singer, Mc, Producer, A&R or talented soul then get in touch. Im always interested in working on new projects and can make music for SYNC work etc.... should you require.. ?
wishing you all a good year!
This Wednesday 15th July is gonna be a busy one for us in Brighton! We've got a FREE acoustic show at The Western Front at 9pm. Then, we're doing a full electric show upstairs at The Pav Tav at 10pm.
Would be good if you can come to one, even better if you can come to both! :)
If you send an email to: info@lostaura.co.uk with the heading 'EP', and pop along to the gigs, tell us your email adress and we'll give you a free copy of our EP! Sweet!
A real live Turkey? Wow! I don't suppose you got a photo!? Yes, the Turkeys are still Wild and free and living in Brighton, it's just the chimps wanted to come and play too! Hope all is going well for you too.
Hiya ! What ya been upto ? Hope your well and kicking. Our single "Shutterspeed" is out wed 17th june ! exciting stuff for us ! drop by and have a listen to the track on our myspace, if you like what you hear, please show the support and get yourself a copy. keep in touch
wed 17th june, the prince albert, brighton. Single release night. 8pm £4 entry includes copy of single.
Check out my new video for the single 'Slow Me Down', it's pretty different from your usual 'rap vid', as I try not to take myself too seriously! Hope you enjoy the mutiple costumes, this vid was a bag a fun to make!
Hope you are well- will check your stuff out soon when I have some time. Went to the A&R talk on Monday- did you go to any of the other songwriters events?