Ext_ended Play’ is the first CD release from wor_kspace since the project’s conception in 2020. It includes a new single entitled, ‘song’, two new instrumentals and the first digital singles, ‘weekend’ and ‘transfer’ together in one place for the first time in the physical dimensions.
‘Song’ seems, at first, like an extremely lazy and simplistic title for this track, but here’s the sketch. I was nearing the completion of the debut wor_kspace album in January 2021 and I decided I needed a few snappy, tightly structured songs to balance out the longer more exploratitive pieces on the long player. I had for some time wanted to experiment with a very traditional song structure – that of the Tin Pan Alley style of Cole Porter et al; a song that has a complete melody and refrain in the first 30 seconds, then repeats. Think of ‘Anything Goes’ or ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’, for example. The point is made early and the song’s title is arrived at after a short, complete melody. To follow this structure to the letter would mean calling the song, ‘We Still Get Along’. However, observant followers of the wor_kspace aesthetic will by now have noticed that every song has a one word title, so that wasn’t going to work. The one word that I felt worked for the title was ‘song’ because it comes at the end of another significant line, ‘my life is going for a song’.
‘Imbolc’ is the first festival of the year in the Pagan Celtic calendar – 1st of February. It is the celebration of the first hint of spring. Not full blown spring but a glimmer of hope that the dark days will be getting brighter soon. There are ‘green shoots’. I felt this track had that cautiously optimistic feel and it was written around that time. It is also relevant that it comes out at this point in history when we are hopefully seeing the beginning of the end of the Covid19 pandemic.
The title for ‘transfer’ came from the preset I used for the rising, space-age, arpeggiated synth sound you hear coming in at various points in the track. The preset came from a pack I downloaded for Sylenth 1 called ‘Retro Thunder’ by Ste Ingam. The lyrics are about a period of time a while back when my daughter was going through a bit of a rough time of things and as such it is a song of transformation and hope.
David Barker asked me for a couple of instrumentals for this CD so I took the opportunity of exploring my ‘CAN-esque’ fantasies and decided to build the track, ‘midnight’ up from a bassline. The samples you hear are from a Scottish Gaelic song archive website called ‘Tobar an-dualchais’ (a kist of riches). It’s an amazing resource of field recordings of Gaelic and Scots songs, poems and stories recorded over the last hundred years for posterity and sung and recited by people who are largely long since gone. The rhythm tracks for both these instrumentals are taken from the noises of tape recorders stopping and starting and of machine hum and record crackle. This type of ‘musique concrete’ is something I intend to get a lot deeper into as the wor_space journey progresses.
‘Weekend’ was the first track I produced for wor_kpace. It’s heavily inspired by Y2K era German electronica of Morr Music and the like, with a heavy dose of ‘Retro Thunder’ thrown in. My favourite line in this came from a time when I was really broke and I had a big plan to propose to my fiancee on a trip to play a festival in Norway with BMX Bandits a few years ago. She had identified a ring she wanted in an old antique shop in Finnieston in Glasgow. I was panicking because I was one pound short and I only had 10 minutes to get this ring. I scrabbled around the car and found a pound coin in the ashtray. Hence the line, ‘leave a coin in the ashtray for the ring’. The proposal couldn’t have turned out better, as it happens as a couple of things went very well. A Norwegian Choir happened to be dining in the same restaurant and they came over, poured us Champagne and sang an impromtu, accapella, romantic barbershop song to us. The other thing that went well was that she said, ‘Yes’.
Finlay Macdonald, June 2021.
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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Ext_ended Play’ includes a new single entitled, ‘song’, two new instrumentals and the first digital singles, ‘weekend’ and ‘transfer’ together in one place for the first time.
‘Song’ seems, at first, like an extremely lazy and simplistic title for this track, but here’s the sketch. I was nearing the completion of the debut wor_kspace album in January 2021 and I decided I needed a few snappy, tightly structured songs to balance out the longer more exploratitive pieces on the long player. I had for some time wanted to experiment with a very traditional song structure – that of the Tin Pan Alley style of Cole Porter et al; a song that has a complete melody and refrain in the first 30 seconds, then repeats. Think of ‘Anything Goes’ or ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’, for example. The point is made early and the song’s title is arrived at after a short, complete melody. To follow this structure to the letter would mean calling the song, ‘We Still Get Along’. However, observant followers of the wor_kspace aesthetic will by now have noticed that every song has a one word title, so that wasn’t going to work. The one word that I felt worked for the title was ‘song’ because it comes at the end of another significant line, ‘my life is going for a song’.
‘Imbolc’ is the first festival of the year in the Pagan Celtic calendar – 1st of February. It is the celebration of the first hint of spring. Not full blown spring but a glimmer of hope that the dark days will be getting brighter soon. There are ‘green shoots’. I felt this track had that cautiously optimistic feel and it was written around that time. It is also relevant that it comes out at this point in history when we are hopefully seeing the beginning of the end of the Covid19 pandemic.
The title for ‘transfer’ came from the preset I used for the rising, space-age, arpeggiated synth sound you hear coming in at various points in the track. The preset came from a pack I downloaded for Sylenth 1 called ‘Retro Thunder’ by Ste Ingam. The lyrics are about a period of time a while back when my daughter was going through a bit of a rough time of things and as such it is a song of transformation and hope.
David Barker asked me for a couple of instrumentals for this EP so I took the opportunity of exploring my ‘CAN-esque’ fantasies and decided to build the track, ‘midnight’ up from a bassline. The samples you hear are from a Scottish Gaelic song archive website called ‘Tobar an-dualchais’ (a kist of riches). It’s an amazing resource of field recordings of Gaelic and Scots songs, poems and stories recorded over the last hundred years for posterity and sung and recited by people who are largely long since gone. The rhythm tracks for both these instrumentals are taken from the noises of tape recorders stopping and starting and of machine hum and record crackle. This type of ‘musique concrete’ is something I intend to get a lot deeper into as the wor_space journey progresses.
‘Weekend’ was the first track I produced for wor_kpace. It’s heavily inspired by Y2K era German electronica of Morr Music and the like, with a heavy dose of ‘Retro Thunder’ thrown in. My favourite line in this came from a time when I was really broke and I had a big plan to propose to my fiancee on a trip to play a festival in Norway with BMX Bandits a few years ago. She had identified a ring she wanted in an old antique shop in Finnieston in Glasgow. I was panicking because I was one pound short and I only had 10 minutes to get this ring. I scrabbled around the car and found a pound coin in the ashtray. Hence the line, ‘leave a coin in the ashtray for the ring’. The proposal couldn’t have turned out better, as it happens as a couple of things went very well. A Norwegian Choir happened to be dining in the same restaurant and they came over, poured us Champagne and sang an impromtu, accapella, romantic barbershop song to us. The other thing that went well was that she said, ‘Yes’.
supported by 23 fans who also own “ext_ended play”
Wow! I can’t believe I missed this release before. I’ve been fan of w_orkspace from the very 1st listen. Ethereal, captivating, commanding and awe-inspiring. A perfect 10 out of 10 for me! Thank you for the beautiful music ❤️ James Duval
London's Modern Woman meld proggy folk-rock and wiry post-punk into an adventurous and elastic sound all their own on this new EP. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 21, 2021
