Abandoned Language

What's new, folks? How about this latest episode of the Skwigly Podcast, eh? Out today, full of goodness, from my hard drive to your awaiting earholes. Don't say I never do nothin' for ya.
I'm happy to say that, over two years in, putting these together is still quite exciting, especially with such high-caliber guests. In this episode we have Bonnie Arnold from Dreamworks, producer of the How To Train Your Dragon movies, Toy Story and, rather awesomely, The Addams Family. The good version of The Addams Family. Also from the world of Dragons we have an extended version of our chat with Dean DeBlois which featured on the last episode of Lightbox. On top of this Laura-Beth talks to Disney talents Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed and Jeff Turley, director, producer and designer respectively of the upcoming short Feast which we managed to get a look at in Annecy.

Meanwhile, in a less traffic-heavy corner of SoundCloud, I've bunged up an old track from an obscure LP I worked on under the moniker Silverfish. I don't think I've ever brought that particular project up on here as it was slap-bang in the middle of my MA and I did a pretty crappy job on the production. The album was made up of two soundscape EPs The Bug Chaser and The Gift Giver, shmushed together. It has a mix of songs and noise pieces generally darker and less marketable than my Struwwelpeter albums and I never felt that motivated to push it, only knocking out fifty self-pressed copies to give away at shows. Listening back I reckon it actually has potential to be quite an interesting little record if I took some proper time redoing the production. This track is my first such experiment in that regard, one of the more 'song'-type songs which always been fun to sing live. I sprinkled some Reason magic over it and it makes a world of difference. Have a listen:
Just for the record, the above is as 'radio-friendly' as the album gets.
Lastly, this week is crunch-week as far as Project Group-Hug goes, so any of you out there who might wish me well (for whatever baffling-yet-appreciated reason) do keep your fingers crossed.

Still Skwiglin'

Just a quick fumble to keep you all appraised of some Skwigly updates.
The latest episode of Lightbox is now up and features the amiably amiable Dean DeBlois, director of How to Train Your Dragon 2. I'm more of a casual Dreamworks fan and, while I certainly enjoyed the first film, the sequel is a genuinely solid, witty piece of work which I'd definitely recommend checking out when it opens in the UK tomorrow.

There's also more Annecy 2014 coverage I haven't yet mentioned on here, have a read of some of the short film highlights and special events. Also the first piece from our time with Cartoon Network is up, wherein Laura-Beth chats to Ben Bocquelet, creator of The Amazing World of Gumball. Laura-Beth has also stepped up to design and animate this month's site banner:

These are getting to be a really nice way of engaging out writers and readers alike. You can check out an archive of prior banners here, including two personal favourites by Rumpus:

...and Sophie Klevenow:

Both of whom fall firmly into the category of people I periodically have to fight the urge to call up and say how awesome I think they are, mainly because it'd doubtless creep them out.
Some news to end on is that I've been told that Project Group-Hug is in the final stage before getting the go-ahead or not. As I've never elaborated on what it even is I appreciate that any interest in said news is probably less than nil. But it's worth keeping tabs on should it proceed. And if you never hear of it again...well, consider it a massive, derision-worthy failure. If I can offer you all nothing else than schadenfreude it's surely the least I can do.