I've never looked better

I'd originally planned to release my new album My Head Is Too Small for My Body on the 19th, but as that's proved to be an unexpectedly contentious date I've rescheduled it...to right now. Surprise!

While I've been popping out a fair few EPs in the interim, this is the first full-length record of mine since The Birdcage in 2015. Part lockdown project, part therapy exercise, this one's a bit more thoughtful lyrically than my albums have been in the past and I got a lot of demons out of my system with it. I also got some help from brilliant musicians Ed Richardson, Phil Brookes and Leanne Brookes to make it sound extra swish.  

It's available on Bandcamp now for a mere bag of shells (and you can try before you buy), but if you just can't bear to part with your cash then it'll be rolled out on various streaming platforms over the next few weeks.

I actually snuck out one final EP for this one last week, featuring the unnecessarily rude On The Air plus two non-album tracks Burnout and Revolución that didn't quite make the final cut. Again that's on Bandcamp as well as various streamers plus I cobbled together a disconcerting little lyric video for it:

Piggy, where'd it all go wrong?

Happy inauguration day folks!

Man alive, we actually made it to this point. To mark the occasion here's a completely unrelated new song I wrote about a certain Piggy that outstayed its welcome. The last Struwwelpeter EP in anticipation of the nearly-done new album My Head Is Too Small For My Body is available from today via Bandcamp (stream below) featuring the exclusive extra track Mysterious Bruises with guest vocals by Laura-Beth as well as an alternate acoustic mix of the title track.

Gracias to Hannah Stevens of Weird Eye Collective for the painterly assistance with the EP cover art.

Don't it all spin by quick

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I realised, thanks to the cruel joys of social media and their respective 'On This Day' thingies, that today marks the ten-year anniversary of my fourth Struwwelpeter LP The Book Of Women. After the soaring (scraped quadruple digits, phwoar) sales of the not-as-good previous LP Agnosticaust in a post-MySpace world this one quietly came out digitally (with a physical release the following week) to a more tepid response. My G5 had crashed two weeks beforehand so I'd lost a bunch of the masters as well as virtually all the assets for a couple of animated music videos that would have gone with it and ended up cobbling the released album together from a mix of partially-recovered files, earlier demo versions and a couple tracks hurriedly remixed from scratch. Even still it was a fun one to piece together and had some great guest musicians. 

History has repeated itself with my iMac shitting its stupid iMaccy britches earlier this year so my plan to have released a new LP by now hasn't happened, but the EPs have been going down OK (once the stats are aggregated, at least). At any rate if you've yet to give The Book of Women a whirl it's available Bandcamp, Spotify (below), iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon, Tidal and Deezer. 

Fun fact: while this album didn't set the world alight, the main single Set You Free did get played on BBC Introducing back in the day - although the hosts kind of took a dump on it, which seemed slightly at odds with picking it in the first place. Comme ci, comme ça.

"Rabbits? Where? Ooh, wow!"

Following last week's streaming preview the remastered reissue of my 2006 Struwwelpeter album Agnosticaust is now available to buy. You can get your hands on it (not literally, digital only releases from here on out) pretty much everywhere that sells music but I'm inclined to point you in the direction of Bandcamp as that version features an extra five bonus songs. You can check out the whole album before you buy below:

The extra cuts are Tom Waits For No One (hidden track on the original CD release), the video remix of Let Slip, a remastered version of the original album mix of TGI Nancy Friday and two previously unreleased live performances of The Rachel Capers and Laughing At A Wall. I spoils ya!

Catapulting ourselves into the present day, in the 93rd episode of the Skwigly Animation Podcast I catch up with Lauren Orme, Festival Director of the Cardiff Animation Festival, founder of Cardiff Animation Nights and co-founder/Creative Director at Picl Animation. Lauren has also recently finished her short film Creepy Pasta Salad with Winding Snake Productions that screens next week at Bristol’s Encounters festival in the competition programme Herstory on Thursday September 26th at noon.
I also speak with David Hutchinson of Wildbrain to discuss navigating the often-overwhelming world of online animation having recently created the YouTube series Boy and Dragon.
Finally Steve chats with Connor Heaney and John Walsh of The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation to discuss the various upcoming Harryhausen 100 events in honour of Ray Harryhausen’s centenary and John’s book Harryhausen: The Lost Movies. Ray also makes a special cameo appearance from beyond the grave, which is sort of fitting when you consider his body of work. As always you can give it a stream (below) or download for keepsies.