Under Deconstruction

It’s almost two years since I first posted the Under Deconstruction EP for free download, at the old tunisiafree.com site. (Don’t bother going there because it now points back here!)

For those who came in late, one Sunday afternoon we went into the studio and acoustically reinterpreted a few tracks off Two False Idols. Or “deconstructed” them, if you will (get it?). This in itself was a worry, because I could no longer hide behind eight guitars, multitracked choirs and orchestras.

Then the EP was made freely available as individual mp3 files. Partly in protest against DRM, partly to prove that downloading music wasn’t the end of the world, and partly because it seemed like a neat thing to do.

(DRM was fairly topical at the time, but it’s just about dead and buried now, so I guess we all won that one!)

Over 2000 mp3s have been downloaded so far from tunisiafree.com, which is not too bad for an underpromoted website!

Two years on I still feel a bit apprehensive about these tracks, mainly because they were all recorded incredibly quickly. I’m generally more comfortable, for instance, spending a week deciding on the best lap steel part for 30 seconds of music, then in exasperation scrapping it altogether, before reminding myself that the original vision for the song called for a lap steel in the first place, and then suddenly finding exactly the right part in those final moments of sheer desperation. Which incidentally has been my latest experience recording Song 4 for the new album.

Hey the lap steel now sounds super.

But Under Deconstruction is rough and ready, and captures a moment in time. So here it is. And if you want to download it, just head over to the Music page!