The Past 5 years or so have being incredibly busy for my ambient / classical project Ocean in a Bottle with dozens of releases on a whole host of labels.
Less so known are a number of projects before that, first of all is a band which was formed in the Autumn of 2005, Distance.
Formed from the ashes of a previous band W@ (Also called Not Dark but Light at one point also), I’ll talk more about this spoken word / keyboard with occasionally song three or four piece band, Distance began off as a accident.
Tony was off up on a visit from Cambridge I seen to recall to see Wiki (His brother) and I was around there by chance with a new small keyboard I had just purchased and by chance Tony had gone and puchased a new bass, and we couldn’t resist plugging into Wika’s 4 track recording device for a jam, and then it started raining, so a mic was plugged in outside and over the afternoon as the rain didn’t stop we just kept recording and recording with the pair of us really duelling over our new instruments with the rain to produce two epic tracks which simply appeared on Distance I – simply I and II to produce a crescendo of ambient white with the rain.
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/i-part-1-and-2)
The same trick was then done in the Spring of 2006 when Tony was back up visiting his mum and we ended up spending some time a bit more organised with our two instruments and Tony’s old laptop when somehow it started raining again proving that magic does happen twice.
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/ii-part-3-and-4)
Tony officially left Distance in the summer of 2006 when he lost interest in his bass playing somewhere in the middle of the Black and White albums and the WLNT sessions (World’s longest Noise Session Track) and I carried on the project mostly solo over the next three years.
The WLNT Sessions (World’s longest Noise Track) was a project took on by somebody I forget who in the Summer off 2006 who wanted people to send in tracks so he could make simply the world’s longest noise track. Between us, we decided on a new direction for Distance where we ripped a ton of vocals of a TV programme which I won’t name and chewed them up to produce a collage of Ambient Noise done over the internet close to being live I am sure.
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/iii-wlnt-sessions)
The joint Black and White albums took this sound further which came off two films called Black and White I seem to recall at the end of 2006 / beginning of 2007 with literally dozens of tracks recorded which was the reason probably why Tony packed it in. Either way, by the time both of the albums came out on Eardose and Halo Extrencio in 2007, I was effiectively flying solo.
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/iv-black)
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/v-white)
Cyprus Memories the last official album by Distance was recorded after being massively influenced by a short holiday to Cyprus in 2008 and their music which played in my head for weeks and involved a cut up process I hadn’t attempted before and seriously loved doing.
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/vii-cyprus-memories)
Tony came back on board for the last release in 2009 in a form, after forming Grey Ear, White Noise with me sometime before with Voices in the Mix / Music without Words with his processed vocals being the main instrument of the release.
(https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/vi-music-without-words-ep-voices-in-the-mix)
Although Grey Ear, White Noise carried on for some time after, I have no memory of why I stopped actually with Distance originally around the 2010 / 2011 territory, but when bringing back into print the Distance back catalogue, I started discovering a number of out-takes / unreleased tracks, these included:
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/viii-nine-inch-nails-remixes (A series of Nine Inch Nails remixes done for a Remix Nine Inch Nails website which were available briefly in 2009 for a while)
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/ix-digital-vomit-remixes-christmas-tracks (A comp of tracks done for a few Digital Vomit various tracks album and music done for DIH and friends at Hicc)
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/x-britney-spears-remixes (Britney Spears remixes given the Distance remix territory, two of which appeared on Digital Vomit various artists albums)
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xi-distance-i-ii-revisitations (Some remixes and edits that were accepted for a Irish record label with the aim of releasing them in 2011 I seem to recall only to go bust before they would be released)
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xiv-white-out-takes
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xv-black-out-takes
(Over the creation and building off ‘Black’ and ‘White’ – over 6 months before I started recording the final two albums, I recorded over 24 tracks in preparation for this, and during the recording of the album a number of other tracks)
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xvi-live-august-2007-manchester
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xvii-live-september-2007-manchester
(The Distance live show was the biggest surprise at the end of 2007 with Tony back on distorted vocals chattering over the top. I was surprised in hindsight we didn’t do more).
During the re-releasing off the above, I became curious what could I do if I returned to the Distance show over 10 years after my last release, and started with a series of live improvisations recorded monthly.
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xviii-improvisation-april-2021
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/xix-improvisation-may-2021
https://andynproductions.bandcamp.com/album/improvisations-june-2021
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