Other Projects + Little Updates
Coming back to the C L O S E website again is a bit strange. All at once it feels like stumbling across an empty house with all its furniture intact while also coming home to your family.
We did say there'd be some stuff appearing soon, and that was back in November. Don't get us wrong, we weren't lying (well, only about the "soon" side of things). We've got a bunch of material waiting to be completed, and a load of ideas crawling through the pipes. It's all just a matter of time before some cool new stuff starts popping up, but in the meantime, we've got some explaining to do.
It seemed like it would be easy to keep things up and running when all of us returned to our studies back in September, but this project has all been a learning curve, and the most interesting lesson we learned was that juggling isn't easy (unless you're Jonny). We've all got our own stuff to work on during term-time, and even holidays have even busy so far, so we're all just waiting for a break which gives each of us enough time to get back together and start playing again. To be honest, the lack of time I had to allow myself to fully commit to C L O S E projects made me worry about continuity originally, but at Christmas when a few of us got together again, hope for upcoming work seemed to be pretty abundant among us all, so I'm more than happy to wait!
While we're attempting to keep pumping out new material in the background of all the other stuff that's going on right now, there are still plans to properly release all of our current material as fully-fledged recordings. That means new sounds, new artwork, new versions and whole new ideas, which we're not even sure about yet, are all on their way to you. In the meantime though, I thought it would be good to update you on some stuff which is going on elsewhere.
Even though studying Literature does leave a man with a lot of free time, the reason why I myself have not been committing as much to C L O S E work as I was before is because I've joined another group at university.
Being a member of Below Bermuda has been a fantastic eye-opener and an pretty terrific chance to write in a wholly new environment. I take little to no part in any musical writing as part of the band, and the lyrics I'm writing are more open to cover more worldly themes. It's also been great to play a style which I'm less accustomed to, because the "pfunk" we play together in York is very far removed from the heavier stuff of home.
At Christmas, I used the same gear which we used during the C L O S E sessions for the (De)Composure demo to record some scratch tracks with Below Bermuda. What I learned from my mistakes during the C L O S E recordings made for a better quality of demo, to the extent that BBC Introducing North Yorkshire played us on air! I'll add a link to the Below Bermuda Soundcloud page below this section in case you're interested in hearing it.
All in all though, it's brilliant to use each band to learn about how respective projects can influence one another in terms of self-improvement and general wisdom. I'm really excited about what Below Bermuda has taught me over the past few months, and I hope that in the same way C L O S E gave me something to take elsewhere, this will give me something to bring home.
I'm hugely grateful for the friends and opportunities I've gained since joining Below Bermuda, and I have some big hopes for the future. Look out for us at Wild Festivals in Essex and Devon over the summer, and if you're in York, come and see us open for Adam Bomb on the 15th of March!
Below Bermuda - Facebook
For others, some pretty equally exciting stuff's been going on since we parted ways back in September. In Jonny's case, circus skills have taken off over the last while, along with conventions and their promotional needs. If you want to be impressed by something, I'll put links at the bottom of this section for you to follow and learn more.
If you flick through Jonny's Instagram, it's pretty hard not to be left feeling jealous. In recent months, he's managed to turn into the type of person who effortlessly wows people with pretty complex performance tricks. I've never met someone as dedicated to perfecting things as he is, and it's really worth having a look at what he's learned to do in his spare time. All in all, he's like living proof of how valuable practise can be.
I hope it's not been too tedious to learn about all that's been happening for us recently. I'm really excited about everything we'll be working on when we get back together again, and hopefully you'll be just as excited when they're a little more tangible in manifestation. I'm also sorry for leaving such massive gaps between announcements, updates and projects in general, but before you know it, we'll be coming back at you again with something fresh and exciting.
Thanks so much to everyone who firstly, read this far down the post, and secondly, has been playing our stuff on all the different streaming sites we've posted on. For some listeners, writing credits and lyrics have been added to stores and streaming services, so if it's been a while since you last checked in with our material, why not go back and see what's new?
While we await what our collective minds will bring in the future, we thank you deeply for your support. Everything we earn goes towards producing something better, and we'll always be working to make things worth the time and effort.
Love always,
Ethan