SUNDOGS is my first collection of solo work. You can hear it in MySpace.

These are multi-layered guitar pieces comprised of folk/blues and post jazz and rock elements with a bit of ambient electronica in the mix as well. Influences would be the organic music of Miles's first electric bands, Daniel Lanois' instrumental work, Bill Frisell's work of the last 10 years, Dylan's Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind, a bit of kraut-rock, early ECM, Cormac McCarthy's writing, National Geographic and a lot of art! Caligraphy as well - Japanese brushwork particularly - less is almost always better.

SUNDOGS is available for purchase digitally from iTunes(256Kbps, DRM free) or you can order a CD from my shop or from Lloyd Cole's shop. The price from here is $15US and shipping varies according to destination but is included in the checkout price. To buy from me you'll need to use Paypal.

GO TO MY SUNDOGS SHOP PAGE

On the right are pdf files of the artwork for anyone who bought songs from iTunes and would like to try a bit of self-assembly;-) Thanks very much for buying. They are all printer ready 300dpi files.

A while back I did a Q&A session with Tim Ellis, the Melbourne based co-ordinator of the Lloyd Cole Fly-Ins site - a site that was set up to cover tours and facilitate and co-ordinate meetings around Lloyds shows. Here is Tim's question that relates directly to Sundogs and my answer.

The full Q&A is HERE. Thanks Tim.


Q. Tim: On Sundogs you have a different sound from your previous work - a lot more laid back and ambient and working a lot with delays. How do you find working in this manner? How do you feel your guitar style has changed?

NC. Writing and playing 'instrumental' music (kind of an ironic term that) is different from accompaniment or playing a solo in the context of a song. Song structure for actual songs, as opposed to compositions, can return to a chorus two or three times because the narrative and the form allows, in fact almost encourages, repetition in the arrangement but if you try the same thing in a composition it usually doesn't work. V, Ch, Middle 8 don't work as well as the old tin pan alley AABA (sometimes adding a C section) format which allows you to stretch out a bit as a player in the A section with a contrasting theme in the B and C sections. Getting used to that change was the big thing. Then deciding on a palette of tones. I ended up wanting to carry as much of the set as possible with just my guitars and only add some loops, bass and non-guitar textures when really called for. Then it would really be a 'solo' album. The emotional landscape was somewhere within the area of calm, big sky, big space americana with a kind of - this is difficult to describe - seam of modal celtic folk music. Not of the kilts and leprechauns variety ;-) , I hate the scottish/irish cliches, but in the modes and the pentatonics and that kind of spirit I hear in guitarists like Bert Jansch and John Fahey and in the best of Van Morrison, U2, Harold Budd and Eno and Daniel Lanois. The Americas (actually the new world in general including Australia and N.Z.) and the Celtic world have a huge history of connections including in music. There's some modal-jazz in there as well, some Monk, Miles' McCoy Tyner and Bill Frisell. I'm kind of fascinated by the use of pentatonic scales throughout the music world. Why did all these different cultures decide that leaving out 2 notes in the scale makes it sound better? Celtic music, North African, Japanese, Jazz, Blues are all to some extent pentatonically based.

I've always used delays on the guitar - from the solo in Forest Fire, through Mainstream and so on - so I don't think that's new. On Sundogs they're very subtle. I usually recorded the guitars dry, in mono and then 'stereo-ized' them in Logic, maybe using a bit of Memory Man type ambience on the way in. I used a combination of stereo delays that I set up for use with the project. Either the Waves Tap and/or the PSP84 - which you can get very odd and beautiful sounds with.

I think my style of playing - i f I have one - has evolved over the years but is still recognizably the same person who played on Rattlesnakes. I know a bit more now than I did then - about music, guitars, pickups, amps, software etc. I like the same things. I still like a great song and good economical playing and I like to be surprised.