ThinMan has featured music over the internet since 1996. All songs are now under copyright of FractalSoup Studio, Wells, U.K. 1) ThinMan is an instrumental and was actually recorded in 1999. It was released via besonic.com and made it to number 1 in the blues charts as well as on to the besonic scout blues compilation cd. The track is introduced by Jones Danby on LRS when I was featured on his show. 2) Drowning uses the Ovation Elite as well as dsp voices from the EmulatorX sampler. Groove Agent kicks in with a loud fusion beat layered with the sound of the Stratocaster lead in the middle. There are three separate solos mixed together in the middle/end. The song is actually only 3mins long. I liked the solo so much I decided to loop the song once with a fade second time around. The voice is watered deliberately. The lyrics were written after work in about 5 minutes. It all just seemed to work. 3) Run With the Stag here is an instrumental and was originally written as a song with Mike Stone in 1990. It became the name of a band I formed in the Autumn of 1994 and lasted until 1996. The original song was a duet acoustic piece that I played a lot as ThinMan with Roj Wallace on Acoustic Bass. There are 3 recorded versions of this song. This instrumental version is the fourth. I liked it so much without vocals I left it the way it is. The drum parts used are Groove Agent voices I re-programmed. Both parts are played live via the DJX midi link. This was not an easy piece for me but I wanted to get it just right. The styles I used are the "1959 Tom-Toms" and my favourite "1972 Bonzo".The rhythmn of the song has always evoked the Run With the Stag scene from "Highlander" (1986) with Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery. This is why I have included it as a cameo at the start. The inspiration behind the song is of "being set free". 4) Full of Tears uses the Ovation Elite as well as dsp orchestral voices from the EmulatorX sampler. Groove Agent is set to "DrumNBass" style with the "Fusion" style on top after the first chorus. I have recorded the song three times one of which was with Run With the Stag featuring Mike Keating on the Violin. I loved that version and wanted to capture the "string" effect in the song. The depth of sound is pleasing. This song features Roj Wallace playing his Ashbury Bass looped at the end. If I had more time and we lived closer together I would have really liked Roj and Mike to play on this project. The song itself was actually written on 13th November 1993 and had the title "I serve the beggar man". My wife and I had just got back from a week's holiday at the Chelsea Hotel in New York and a lot of the impressions I gained there fill the song. Half the song is also influenced heavily from my experience as a Teacher of disturbed children and the toll it took on me personally. "A man who never crys is also full of tears..." It has always been a song of hope and post "9-11" there is some tragic irony to this song particularly in the last verse. 5) Into the Dawn is an instrumental from July 2004 and begins with a loop uisng Rave EJay. The feel is riding on the wave of the previous song. The Groove Agent uses 3 styles in this track. 2 are midi triggered tracks using the "Ambient" and "2 Step" styles. The "Fusion" heavy drum sound had to be played live whilst rendering the audio at the mastering stage. It gave it an overall realistic drum sound. I used the Wilkes Telecaster on two separate tracks, panned left and right. As with a lot of my music usually the "first draft" track becomes the backbone for the final mix. I am just too busy to be able to spend days at a time reworking and re-recording. ThinMan music has always been recorded with the chaos only found in "live" performances often in one take. This is a good example. 6) Stonemaker got to be number 1 in the Besonic United Kingdom Alternative charts. It begins with a sampled sequence using Rave Ejay looped in Cubase SX. I used the Telecaster, Ovation and Wilkes Bass as the crux of the piece. Groove Agent uses the "Mini Works" style as well as "Bonzo". The song was originally written whilst I was re-reading Lord of the Rings back in December 1995. It has the dedication "for Smeagol" attached to it. The Band "Run with the Stag" took it on and created an energetic performance with Mike Keating on Fiddle, Damien Cavanagh on Drums, Roj Wallace on Bass and Steve Mitchell on Keys. I still have a couple of versions recorded live on 4-Track. I reformed "Strange Daze" Roj Wallace, Git, Matt and Damien in 2001 to studio record some of the songs from the period 1993 - 1997 and this was one of them. We never did get round to going into the studio though.... 7) Mirror is an instrumental from an incomplete album "So Full of This". The track actually began with the downloaded demo version of Groove Agent. The lead guitar parts are the originals from August 2003. I had two tracks of Stratocaster along with the "Hard Rock" style. The track originally had a mirror cameo from Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus" (1949) at the start but I changed it to use "The Fellowship of The Ring" as it just seemed to work with the newer version. I wanted a big build up to the lead solo in the middle and used the Ovation to create the mood. I added a sparce DrumNBass style with the DJX "Trance" voice and it just kept growing from there. The counter melody is played one bar out of sequence to reslove itself before the "Hard Rock" drums kick in. Incidentally the album "So Full of This" was to be a CD as well as a VCD/DVD with video footage of the Glastonbury/South West Arthurian Landscapes. The VCD version was to be called "The Mirror". I have kept this project open and will again begin work on it next year. The rough cuts have been included in a special 2CD version of this album only available directly from me. 8) Their Dogs are After Me was written with the Animal Liberation Front band, "Destroy the Myth" I formed in 1989 to raise funds for hiring vans to take us out to England's Killing Fields. I was a Hunt Saboteur between 1988 and 1990 whilst a student at Keele University near to Stoke-on-Trent. I also ended up running the Animal Rights Group at the University in my final year 1989-1990. The band had John Wade on drums a fellow AR activist. 9) I can still see you is an instrumental using the DJX to trigger voices from the EmulatorX Studio Sampler. Tabitha Mary our first daughter died on the 15 April 1993. Every year since then at that date I end up playing something. It's my own way of marking the time as well as remembering her and what we went through. This was recorded 15 April 2004, 11 years on. It was recorded live in one take and is purely reflection in sound. 10) SnowFall is an instrumental I put together in the Winter of 2003 whilst working on recordings I made with my Dad at the time. The feel of this track is very much the sort of track I want to hear at late night DJ-Parties. It's the sort of sound that would get me dancing. It uses Rave Ejay to create the recurring background loop. Like "The Mirror" it has a Video recorded for it and was to be on the VCD/DVD album "So Full of This". This track has no backup. In a moment of madness I wiped the Cubase tracks so this is all that surviives. I just wish I could remember the Bass line;-) 11) Between Two Shores the title track is an instrumental using the DJX to trigger voices from the EmulatorX Studio Sampler. I particularly liked the metallic bell sound I achieved here. The Ovation was recorded on two tracks. The Groove Agent uses the "Ambient" and "1973 Darkside" styles. The virtual drummer was asked to play completely randomly throughout this piece. I wanted to wander, to create that feeling you get when you are lost out there someplace, between two shores... More details can be found at http://fractalsoup.org