Temposhark Podcast returns, Rising Star Awards, White Cubicle gallery.

I met up with producer genius MaJiKer yesterday in London's Soho and interviewed him for the first of a new series of the Temposhark Podcast.

It's the first Podcast I've posted for 2 years, so it's nice to be back in Podcast land. As always, you can download them for FREE from iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/jV5iz

If you don't use iTunes, you can download the Podcast file directly from Libsyn here: http://bit.ly/B8fI8

Majiker, producer extraordinaire

Most of you will by now have MaJiKer's beautiful remix of new Temposhark track 'Threads' on the b-side of my brand new single. It's one of my favourite remixes ever as it really takes the track to a brand new place. You can listen to the mix at iTunes too (http://bit.ly/U1ufr). Thanks to everyone who downloaded the single this week as I had my highest electronic iTunes UK chart place so far! :)

In other news, I just heard Temposhark are in semi-finals of Rising Star Award for the British Music Week 2009! Thanks every1 who voted! Out of 10,000 bands!

Earlier this week I did lots of interviews including a cool one for BBC Manchester & BBC Lancashire with John Barnes. You can listen on the BBC iPlayer to catch it if you missed it: http://is.gd/3jL5h. My interview starts at the 1hr:5mins:45secs point on the iPlayer.

At BBC Radio's studios in Great Portland Street this week

I also did a fun interview with Phil Marriott at GaydarRadio.com which is now online in full to download as a Podcast by clicking here: http://bit.ly/JIKq3 Their website is also currently hosting my new music video for 'The World Does Not Revolve Around You'.

Finally, this Sunday 20th September I've been asked to 'cut the ribbon' to mark the opening of artist Julie Verhoeven's latest exhibition, in association with London Fashion Week, at the White Cubicle gallery in the bathroom of George & Dragon pub in East London. See you all there! http://www.whitecubicle.com Their nights are always a riot.

R.x

"I've Seen The Future, Baby"

Hello gang!

Wow. So I haven't updated the blog in what seems like forever.

Here's a quick catch up. Sean and I have finished the recording and mixing of 11 new songs for my new album... Temposhark album 2!

We spent a few days at the end of last week tweaking everything and went to Andy Bradfield's studio in West London for a few days to give our feedback on his mixes and edit them to make them all sound perfect. 

It's got to that funny point at the end of an album when both Sean and I can hardly tell what we think anymore of the record as we've heard it so many times now! But fear not - we know it's great and that you're going to love it! But we can't work out what track order to choose yet... so I decided to get out of the UK for a few days and am currently enjoying a short break in the sun, well not exactly sun - some sun, some rain and mainly lots of chilly breeze! But it's been a big relief for me to get away from both London and the songs for a few days. :)

We had loads of meetings over the past couple of weeks with all kinds of cool music industry people; it's been great to hear people's thoughts, see their reactions as we play songs and find out which ones they think are singles, the strongest tracks and all that!

I also hung out with my long-term design collaborator Tom Lardner and artist Julie Verhoeven who are both hard at work coming up with ideas for the album art work... and I've been in discussions again with my mate Ben Charles Edwards who is a great new film-maker about possible videos ideas. We were originally going to make a video to a song 'Joy' from my last album but we ended up deciding to wait and to make a few for this new album instead... we already have some great ideas! Ben made a film recently which was screened on MySpace called The Town That Boars Me - it features the acting talents of some of his mates like Kelly Osborne, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Sadie Frost to name a few... it really caught my eye when I saw it at the Notting Hill Film Festival last year, so I'm excited to collaborate with Ben.

Anyway, I had better get back to my 'holiday'... :)

I'll write soon...

R.xx

"Home And Dry"

I was at home today as Sean had to do a writing session with another artist so I got the day off! Back to work tomorrow though, yes it's a Sunday but when we record we forget about the conventional week and work pretty much every day! This means after a few days in the studio, you forget what day it is, and you don't remember any 'days of the week' until the album is completed and you return to the world outside!

Tonight I've been playing the keyboard in my flat. This is where a lot of the Temposhark song ideas come from... when I write alone this is how I do it - really simple, me and a piano. I prefer real pianos but this keyboard is perfect for my London flat as it's not as noisy, I can just put on headphones and disappear... I love it.

Me in my writing room in January 2008, by Stephen Dupont.

Some songs from my last album, like Not That Big, Winter's Coming and It's Better To Have Loved, were written in the middle of the night on this keyboard... at 4am when I'd wake up from my sleep and suddenly need to write! This time round, I've written LOADS of song sketches, verses and choruses, and then taken these to Sean's studio and we've co-written completed songs out of those initial sketches.

It's proved a really fun way to work, but I also really love writing directly over Sean's backing tracks, where he creates a music track - drums, synths or other sounds - which I will then sing over, it's instant, whatever comes into my head. It's good to have different starting points for songs, as these different methods provide different kinds of songs, keeping it interesting.

I get inspired by so many different things. There's never one set way that I'll write a song. Sometimes it's something someone will have said to me, that can give me a song title or a strong lyric... at other times, I'll read a book or be reading about an artist I love, and a phrase will spark off a whole thought process.

A keyboard, earlier.

Othertimes I sit in my lounge, play the piano, and a whole song appears out of nowhere... usually sparked off by an extreme emotional feeling - like if I'm furious with someone it'll all pour out into the song... or if I'm feeling super loved-up, it's the same thing...

I used to stress a lot if I was finding it hard to write a new song, if I felt like a creative block had hit, but I've learnt over the years (I've been writing songs since I was 13) that you just have to relax, and not to beat yourself up too much! The moment I chill out is always when something really great happens...

Sean and I both keep a lyric book too - where we'll jot down lyric ideas, as and when they come to us. As a songwriter, well for us anyway, this is something that becomes part of your everyday life. If I forget to take my book out with me, I usually end up making notes (or even singing into the recorder/answer phone) on my mobile phone - last week I got to grips with the Note Pad on my new iPhone, just in time before I forgot an idea!

I think it's important to write songs as much as I can... I like being productive... and in fact I'm at my most happy when being creative. I may not even realise that it's happening, but if I go for a few weeks without writing, I get into a bad mood! So it's something I need, something I can't live without.

Bottles by Julie Verhoeven.

These awesome bottles were made by my dear friend, the artist and illustrator Julie Verhoeven, and sit right next to my piano and often provide inspiration as they remind me of Julie's world... she's magical and inspiring. I love her! I took these off a table she had decorated at Maureen Paley Gallery's dinner last year at Claridges - it was a very posh night, and when I was leaving I asked Maureen if it was OK to take some souveniers, and she said YES!! :)

***

As I know I'm not going to get much time off until late December, I decided to go into central London this afternoon and walked around for a good 5 hours! I was exhausted by the end of it as I was speed walking, which is a bad habit of mine that my friends will all confirm - I tend to annoy most people walking with me! I'm like 'People I'm walking!' and off I go... ;)

I went to the INCREDIBLE National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, filled with Saturday tourists, I really enjoyed the Love exhibition currently showing. It has one of Tracey's embroidered works in it, and a wicked work by Grayson Perry, a small ceramic sculpture of a rabbit. The whole show was great, and the best bit is it's free to get in, so if you live in London, visit it before Sunday 5th Oct when it close (next Sunday).

I then walked through a sunny Green Park, by Buckingham Palace... I'd never actually walked there before and enjoyed seeing the ponds, really pretty. I arrived after about 40 mins at Tate Britain and saw the new Francis Bacon exhibition. GO SEE IT! Really fascinating. The only thing that annoyed me was that all the paintings were in big frames, behind glass, and I would've enjoyed it much more if they'd been out of the frames... but what a LEGEND!

Funnily enough, Metronomy (who remixed our Temposhark song Not That Big), was doing a live gig at Tate Britain while I was there today, so that was cool too! It reminded me of when we did our own live gig there a while back, nice memories! I'll try and set something up for when our next album comes out, as I love playing in unusual venues!

Anyways, after window shopping for a while, and walking LOTS more, I popped into White Cube and the Royal Academy in Green Park, then I came home and started writing...

Right well that's enough for now, I'll be back at Sean's tomorrow so speak then...

R.xx