zeal has relocated to melbourne!  i’m building my new live set so all you melbournites – keep an eye out for shows in the near future.  right now i’m prepping the packaging for my new album “with the moon alongside racing us home”.

physical copies of the album will ship in awesome handmade sleeves with fun paper parts and bonus warm fuzzy feelings.  i might find a way to sneak fun stuff into the digital copies too.  lots on the horizon – vj shows, new video clip, maybe a even a tour and a new ep.  back to it!

spent the last two weeks finishing my new album.  i don’t think i’ve mentioned what’s it’s going to be called yet…  i don’t think i will now either.  but i will moon soon.  a few tracks are mastered and i’m being a one man CD duplication factory this very second, pumping out a small pile of cd singles.  feels like we should have been done with these lumbering circular plastic things 5 years ago.  catch up radio! next step, artwork.  it’s quite exciting.  you’ll like the album, i promise.  it makes mention of robots a few times and there’s this three note refrain that’s sprinkled through out the 15 or so tracks which all weave together.  it’s almost a concept album… just with a poorly defined concept…  more of a unproven hypothesis album.

also on the work bench, for all you unfortunate souls, i’m getting AXIS up and running on windows… i say that but really xp’s alright.  the windows versions going to be minus a few small features just because of the way the windows drivers interpret the guitar (or unless someone else can fix it).  this is one big step closer to release meaning it will be out before the years up.

i’ve been making stickers too.  as i promised: robots and swear words.  if you want one you have two options.  the hard way: print out the above robot on sticker paper and cut it out.  or the super easy way: enter my EP + sticker give away! there’s four days left and it’s super easy.

back to the assembly line for me.

i’m knuckling down and editing the agnes kain clip over the weekend. it’s the first time i’ve tried final cut and it’s not that bad. i had to shed some prejudice brought on by my hatred for itunes and all apple software by association. but final cut’s actually alright. it runs much faster than premiere (which i made this with) but i’m still yet to find anything as intuitive as vegas (which i made this with). if anyone out there knows of any secret superstar video editing software let me know – i don’t think any developers have quite got it right yet. meant to put up this super exclusive behind the scenes pic last post. i’m all about ruining the magic.

ok, i should get back to editing instead posting stuff and playing in the world of text (which i made this with).

shot one of the final scenes of the agnes kain clip last night. it was a full size rear projection shoot exactly like the mighty boosh just with less crimping.

a few little scenes left to shoot and edit and then that’s a wrap. it’s pretty exciting to see how the clip’s turning out, especially seeing how it’s evolved from the original idea. i’m animating the clip “in camera” with no effects in post. it moves a lot of the problems that usually need to be solved from inside a computer out into the real world where they’re easier to deal with. mainly because in the real world every single problem can be solved with gaff tape. ryan the birdman agrees.

these are the birdman wings i made for this agnes kain clip. all heshen, bamboo and cable ties. the opacity of the heshen in a few silhouetted shots turned out real nice. and i’m seeing some unintentional parallels pop up with the cuba is japan clip. now i’m making a small cardboard set to double the aerial footage.