INDEXED IN «Savage Furs»
SAVAGE FURS EP OUT MARCH 21, 2011 ON 12″ VINYL + DIGITAL

Two birds with one stone for the dawning months of 2011. First “No Longer Stranger” and now this release by Savage Furs. Their debut EP is slated for release on March 21, 2011  in 12″ vinyl and digital download formats. There will be more information on how to get your copy in the coming weeks leading up to the release. Those who purchase the 12″ vinyl version will find a voucher in the jacket sleeve with a code to download the digital MP3 version of the EP free of charge.

In the meantime you can head over to the newly launched Savage Furs website and download a free copy of the EP track “Sick Lamborghini”.

SAVAGE MACHINA RIOT
Limited silk-screen posters for the event by Jonas Ranson

Limited silk-screen posters for the event by Jonas Ranson

View the engaging graphics to the left. This event is coming up this Saturday: Savage Furs are performing at London’s “brutalist euro disco”, Deus Ex Machina. Sophomore show. Good times.  Limited silk screen posters are done by Jonas Ranson and I personally think they look quite snazzy.

After this event I’ll be hauling all the music making equipment back to the flat for a window of some music writing before the next live performance needs to be practiced up for. There’s a few pieces of outboard equipment added that are fun to work with. Savage Furs are cooking up some new material that I’m excited about. I’m also going to taking another running jump at getting Soft Riot going again. The creativity is there but there was a lack of an angle or a unifying idea. That and writing music solo is the equivalent, at least for me, of walking around in a giant vaccuous white room. Where am I going? What am I doing? What do I think makes something finished? I’ve got somewhat of an angle now so let’s see where that goes.

THE BLADED RAINBOW

BladedRainbow_A6_FINIt’s fair to say that although this site hasn’t had any Soft Riot news in – well – a year it’s not to say that nothing has been going on! This news thread is more of a general document of the creative activities that your author is involved in. After a year of writing and more recently rehearsing, Savage Furs are playing their (our?) first show next Thursday, Sept 9th at a small yet cool venue called The Drop in Stoke Newington.

We’ll be having a number of talented folks DJing the night including James of Brave Exhibitions, some members of the electronic group My Elastic Eye and our friend Zara, aka Miss Glitch playing a variety of music that roughly is summed up on the flyer itself: WAVE / SPACE / MINIMAL / COLD / POP / ELECTRONIC / GLAM / MUTANT / POSTPUNK.

After that there will be some writing and then I’m off to Canada for a couple of weeks. We’re then playing October 15th at the Buffalo Bar for the club night Bedsitland. Perhaps we’ll see you around.

AUGUST LOVE TRIANGLE

JJD WorksIt seems out of place but the old city of London feels autumnal these days. I even had a mild chill despite wearing a jacket when waiting on the platform for the tube this morning. In a strange way it was comforting; good ol’ gray and glum England.

After a number of months of a hazy transition out of one old shell into a brand new shell, some clarity was found in regards to where my world of design was heading. The old hat that I was part of, The Wax Museum, is no longer and I have gone on my own to start anew under a more personal moniker: JJD Works. I thought about how to condense over 10 years of work under a number of different names and guises into something that was to-the-point and conveniently accessible, as well as being really easy to update as my track record tends to filled with eons of site neglect when the classification of editing gets anywhere out of the realm of “fast” and “lazy”.

I’m also happy to announce, at least in a pre-liminary form, that Savage Furs are going to be debuting the live show in September. The date and venue are set but just banging out the details right now so announcements will come soon. Thanks go out to Del Jae and Chris Flatline for spending numerous hours in a cramped Limehouse rehearsal room working out the musical points and maxing out a very small PA.

Finally, there’s been word buzzing around about the Texan video artist (just straight up artist?) Tommy Boy and curiousity led me to a mix he recently did with Vice Magazine. I highly recommend it; a wide variety of outsider electronic music from now and then, including Houston-based Indian Jewelry, who are quite good. You can find this mix here.

IN THIS SUMMER OF OUR SYNTH CONTENT

DSC00063So, still no Soft Riot material if that’s what you’re here looking for — all two of you that is. Not to say that there hasn’t been a lot going on. In fact, quite a bit has been going on. A lot of this activity has been going on with Savage Furs, who have finished another demo containing a set of four songs. For the limited distribution we’ve been handing out in this preliminary stage of the band, the tracks have been getting a lot of good feedback. I’ve provided a few links at the bottom of this little update should you be interested in reading.

Moving forward, the main priority is getting the band onto the stage! This is coming along rather nicely as we’ve been in midst of rehearsals. There will be more news on this soon as shows are coming right around the corner when that moment is right. You can check out the band’s various online guises in the near future for updates but there will likely be updates here as well.

I have also lent some of my time to helping out my friends in the London synth duo called A Terrible Splendour, who play “darkly luxurious synthesized pop”. We have been recording, re-recording, and working on a few tracks that are about to go into the mixing stage and I can assume they will have tracks posted from these sessions soon. It’s been been fun and interesting working on music that I’m not entirely involved in, and trying to suggest approaches to elements within the context of music other people have written. And having a chance to brush up any production skills I think I may have is always a plus.

Oh yes, and here’s those links:

SAVAGE FURS : An Interview with YouIndie.com (June 2010)
SAVAGE FURS : “The Throne of Satyricon” (Goldkicks, May 2010)
SAVAGE FURS : Review on mickmercer.com (February 2010)