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.

Old Chestnuts

Happy Monday all!
A few oldies that I worked on have recently resurfaced. Firstly the latest of my old discography to finally make its way to Spotify, iTunes et al is the 2010 EP Digital Stimulation.

This one originally came out in the run up to the LP The Book of Women that would be released at the end of the same year and features six exclusive alternate mixes/edits of songs from that album as well as its 2006 predecessor Agnosticaust (which will hopefully get itself a full reissue soon). Check 'er out:

On the animation side of things I saw that a collection of highlights from Jonti Picking (aka Weebl) and Sarah Darling's webseries Wobble Box went up over the weekend, with a couple of the segments I animated thrown in. So that's something to keep your company on your lunch break:

More good news is that Rumpus Animation's first step into the world of video game adventuring The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle - for which I provided the voices of That Guy Who Sounds Like Ben Mitchell and That Other Guy Who Sounds Like Ben Mitchell But A Bit Nasally among others - will be getting itself a Japanese release on the Nintendo Switch on March 29th, so fingers crossed for a wider release in the not-too-distant. You can learn more about this version here and there's a slightly more Nintendo-ey version of the trailer you can watch below:

Ben and Women

Continuing the migration of my musical back catalogue to some of these modern distribution channels - what with me being so hip and down with the youth and all - February's re-release is my 2010 album The Book of Women.
This one was originally put out when my attentions were mostly focused on The Naughty List and, in a limbo between the eras of MySpace and Bandcamp, didn't really get much momentum compared to the albums that came before and after. It was a lot of fun to do, however, and has a lot of great musician pals of mine guesting on it, not to mention fond memories associated with it. So if you're in the mood check 'er out for free on Spotify (you can stream below) or grab it for keepsies on iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon, Bandcamp or even on compact disc if you like your unfashionably retro music formats. The CD has the added bonus of featuring a photo of me on the back looking like a bell-end if that's an incentive at all.

Cabinet Reshuffle

As I expect nobody has noticed, the digital version of The Book of Women is no longer listed on Amazon (you can still buy the physical CD for the foreseeable future). If you're just joining us, that's my last album which came out over four years ago. LOOK AT IT:

All in all it's had a good enough run thus far to keep it available in some digital form, so I've put it up on Bandcamp. This is the latest in a long line of music hosting sites I've haunted like the ghoul I am, starting with the original mp3.com way back in '99, through to Cafepress, MySpace, Createspace and SoundCloud. The latter is still the main place to go for free tracks/exclusives/remixes et al but Bandcamp has the advantage of letting you purchase individual tracks and streaming the album in full. One of many protracted projects of mine has been the gradual remixing/remastering of my back catalogue which was halted when I heard about the new VAT laws for digital distribution in effect this year. Bandcamp seems to have the most streamlined approach to dealing with this so it's very likely I'll reissue all the older stuff digitally through them in the near future as well.
As touched upon last month, a new album called The Birdcage is also in the works and will hopefully be ready by the Spring. To prove I'm not a lying liar here's a sampler of in-progress tracks I put up on my Facebook page a little while back:

Post by Ben Mitchell - Creative Offal.

Hermit Ben

Just before the holidays began, I made the conceivably misguided move of getting a whole mess of plates a-spinnin’ which will hopefully lead to some exciting stuff I can reveal come March. Until then I expect things on the blog front will get pretty quiet. Try not to drown in your tears.
The game plan is to shut myself away and barrel through as many ongoing commissions as I can so as to get started on what’s looking to be a ‘biggie’ with relatively few distractions. So if it seems like I’m not posting much on here, that’ll be why. I don’t anticipate many (if any) new festival screenings or film updates in that time, but if anything comes in I’ll put it up here while attempting to reign in my usual shitheaded editorialising.Before making myself disappear completely I may as well plug the first TV broadcast of 2012 for “The Naughty List”, which will be shown this Sunday 8th at 8:52pm on Canal+ Comedia in Spain. If you miss it, you can keep checking back on their channel page for upcoming broadcasts (there is, of course, the highly-defined online option available to y’all as well).Another piece of happy, non-animation news is that my most recent album “The Book of Women” is now available to buy through Amazon, either as a traditional CD (for us nostalgic old-timers) or as a digital download for the youthful hipsters out there. Check it out here, there are clips and everything! FANCY!

Struwwelpeter - "The Book of Women" on Amazon

Right, back to the cave and my faithful bogman companion. Little post-John K R&S reference there for ya.
Yup.

Jammin'...in a couple of respects...

It's been just over a year since Bill Plympton put out the call for animators all over the world to contribute to "Guard Dog Global Jam", and so in honour of the film's successful completion and subsequent glowing reception at a whole heap of international fests (recent inclusions being OIAF and LIAF) I did a feature on the project from the perspectives of Bill, Plymptoons producer Desiree Stavracos and a bunch of the film's very talented contributors. You can read it over at Skwigly now:

Guard Dog Global Jam - A look at Bill Plympton’s worldwide collaboration endeavour

One of the highlights of being personally involved with the film was learning about so many other great animation enthusiasts, professionals and independents out there. So a great deal of thanks go out to Fatima Yasrebi, John T. Quinn, James Sugrue, Ansar Sattar, Amy Sutton, Mike Schneider, Filip Grudziel, Rebecca Wallace, Jeremy Galante and Julius Liubertas for their feedback for the article, as well as Desiree and Mr. Plympton himself for putting the whole thing together in the first place.Occupying a completely separate position on the spectrum of my extracurricular activities, I have recently been going through a bunch of old music recordings of mine in anticipation of re-releasing all my CDs. This came from hearing the news that Lulu is rescinding their produce-to-demand service for music, alongside the realisation that Cafepress (my main alternative) had rather shittily done so already without mentioning it to anyone.
So, while I weigh up the remaining options, I'm remastering all my production work from 2003-2008 to bring it up to par with my most recent album, 2010's "The Book of Women". Some of the tracks I've been uploading to SoundCloud as they're done to serve as a free online sampler. Here are the first batch from this past week:

On A Limb by Struwwelpeter

Rabbit Hole by Struwwelpeter

Laughing At A Wall (Live) by Struwwelpeter

What I Predict (Amneurotic) by Struwwelpeter

Cold Turkey (Remix) by Struwwelpeter

More to come in the following weeks. In the meantime I may as well use the opportunity to remind y'all that the completely free EP "Digital Stimulation" is still available to stream or download in its entirety.So there ya go, free reading material and free music to distract you when you should be working. I spoil you all.

Cashin' In

While I endeavour to tie all the creative loose ends in my scattershot life, my new album "The Book of Women" is gradually garnering some positive feedback. I have an outline for a marketing plan that will be put into action in April (four months after the release, which is traditionally not the way to go but I just don't have the time right now). This will consist of the usual batch of associated merchandise, a mini-site and exclusive tracks/remixes, plus I'd ideally like to release it as a digital download to keep up with the yoof. Until then all's I have are two new poster prints, both with the same album cover artwork (which I blathered about last month) that's cropped for the actual CD but lends itself rather well to portrait dimensions.
There's a large print (35" x 23") and a medium print (20" x 16") both available to buy online. Pick one up and cover that blank space on your wall/door/soul!
As I'm always keen to jump on any opportunity to showboat, there are also posters available for two prior Struwwelpeter albums, one for the somewhat-nightmarish "Rapeseed" (2004) and three for the pinkier, bunny-ier "Agnosticaust" (2006):

The Miracle of Xmas

Defying all odds, including the Great G5 Crash of 2010, I've finally finished and released "The Book of Women", sticking with the planned date of the 13th just in time to probably be too late for Xmas. But fuggit, it's done!
I probably won't start promoting it properly before the new year as I have a buttload of work/seasonal crap to get done, plus some bizarre and seemingly unresolvable issues to do with my usual distribution company's print process means there are presently two versions to buy. One is via Lulu, who do my books (very well) though I've never used them for publishing indie music so I'm not sure how they'll measure up. Off the bat they have a strangely truncated runtime for CDs of 70mins which means a hidden (not so much now that I've told you) track had to get lopped off. They also only seem to print one-sided sleeves so some booklet and tray artwork had to go too.
While the Cafepress version has the additional artwork and the extra track, problems with the site have rendered the tray cards useless so people - myself included - will have to print off their own. A pain in the balls and one that I'm a little floored by given it's such a small issue that they have absolutely no desire to amend (I'll post the customer service exchange at some point).
So both versions have their advantages and disadvantages:
Lulu - cheaper but you get slightly less content - £6.99
Cafepress - inexplicable tray screwup but overall you get more of the good stuff - £11
So I'm considering these prototypes, until January when I'll look into a better option for selling print-on-demand CDs, ideally with more leeway for visuals and possibly even a lyrics booklet.
The artwork itself was the absolute last element of the project, completed the weekend before the release date. While I had some vague ideas of how to interpret the title of the album, with time running out I figured I'd just go the literal route and have the main recurring image be a book...of, y'know, women..Beginning with a somewhat modified and stylised female/Venus symbol, I imposed the image over photographs of a wonderfully oversized and delapidated tome of illustrations.Using the heavy texture of the book cover as a guide this visual was easily replicated for the same book seen at different angles, open, closed, being held etc. Some shots have distincly female arms/legs emerging, these just taken from stock libraries as I didn't have the time or pull to either hire a model or convince any of my friends to hike up their skirts.To complement the simplistic retro/surreal style I wanted the backdrops to have more of a colourful, illustration-type feel. I sketched out some semi-abstract background designs and, in a similar vein to the backgrounds for "The Naughty List", used heavily layered textures to brighten them up.The sketches and typography were hand-drawn while I was waiting for my computer to recuperate the week before. While the lengthier credits are typed, the track listing and album title have a bit more personality, sort of cartooney but in a way that hopefully works with the rest of the visuals.In keeping with my atrocious habit of inserting myself into more or less every visual project I do, the obligatory shot or several of me makes its way into the artwork, in an equally rushed sense. While I usually go with photomanipulation (last album I was a hassidic-rabbit-thing, the one before I was a man-foetus) this time I'm just a creep in an overcoat. Sort of an Ozzy/Lemmy/Brad-Dourif-in-'Deadwood'/Bad-guy-from-Ghostbusters-2 hybrid. I think the moustache sells it (Movember being long over and, well, I appear to have kept it. Interesting...).This was entirely a case of grabbing a coat too big for me, grabbing glasses too small for me, holding up the book and shoving a camera in my unsuspecting Ma's hand and instructing her to snap away while I struck a series of awkward poses. It was weird and unsettling for both of us. But I like the result, especially against the backgrounds:One thing I've found as I get older is a decreasing fondness for oversaturation when using colour. It certainly has its place when considering your audience, but in this instance after some contemplation I decided to tone down the intensity and give the album more of a faded quality.
While it was a product of mad, deadline-looming panic, sometimes that's just the thing that pushes a designer to come up with something different yet effective and time-feasible. I really feel that this goes well with the music on the CD, it's colourful and cartooney but not in an over-the-top way, it's bizarre but not in the sense of being too dark or inaccesible. Hopefully it's something that appeals for what it is and can appropriately represent what I'm doing musically, which in all honesty I think is more marketable than any other album I've made. Maybe the fact that it's been marinating for over four years while I've had my animation work as a focus is the reason why. But I don't know really, it's very possible that its appeal is hugely limited and I'm just looking at it with the type of fawning adoration that only the parent of a hideous, malformed child can. Whichever way, I'm glad that after ten years of the increasing demands and expectations of real life I'm still able to do these from time to time.
Here's the full tracklisting, click on each title for clips. Ah, g'wan:
1. Absent Friend
2. Sibling Ribaldry
3. Drunk Lady
4. Hello Kitty
5. Miles Away
6. Anticancer
7. Spy Vs. Spy
8. Smartass
9. Cut & Run
10. Get Off Me
11. The Other Man
12. Set You Free
13. Start Again
On a closing note I'd like to give credit to all the musicians who helped flesh the album out and make it all the more listenable: Celia Claudie, Alison Eire, Analisa Hamilton, John Harris, Hans Hess, Todd Lynes, Melissa o'Dell, Jennifer Rayne, Verity Ross-Smith and Helen Shaw. I also want to thank Veronika Broscheid, David Hutchinson, Erica Mitchell and Chris Richardson who, along with a number of the musicians mentioned above, helped out rather crucially with the final stages of mastering by giving me feedback on my progress in the lead-up to the release. I probably would've finished the album sometime around 2013 had it not been for the final push, so it's hugely appreciated.
Look at me, all full o' seasonal cheer.

Adieu, rotting duck thing.

I woke up this morning to the dramatic thump of something large and cumbersome being pushed through my letterbox. Turned out to be the bulky (and very pretty) program for Anima Mundi along with the return of the last 'House Guest' screening copy. Thus ends my zombie duck's reign of terrifyingly adorable shenanigans on the international festival circuit. As I have so vainly documented, it's had an astoundingly good run given that it was both my first film and a student film made for literally nothing. A little over two years since its completion I cannot really explain what a humbling experience it's been seeing it do the rounds alongside other films by friends, contemporaries and even some of my heroes in the industry. I know that on here I write like a self-aggrandising ass most of the time, and maybe some people who don't know me in real life might not pick up on the irony, but the truth of the matter is that we're living in pretty rough times where to keep afloat in the industry you have to drink the Kool-Aid for the most part. Sometimes it can be a lot of fun but generally speaking when you work for a company or someone else's project there are plenty of moments of second guessing and self-doubt. As 'House Guest' was always mine its completion and positive reception have kept me inspired to keep hammering out my own projects, hopefully with an equal balance of confidence and self-awareness. So thanks once again to everyone who selflessly helped with the film, all the festivals (big and small) that gave it a chance and everyone who contacted me personally to say nice things about it.

They also threw in a 'participation' certificate. Which is both a new one on me and pretty nice of them.

So moving on, first I want to mention the Babelgum Animation Film Festival which currently has a whole bunch of shorts online you can watch and vote on. Nothing of mine in there but some friends' films such as 'Wherever You Go There You Are' by Sara Barbas, 'Ami' by Dominique Bongers and 'Noesis' by Sophie Klevenow are all worth a look. I haven't had time to watch the others but some that I'm familiar with and enjoy include '8-Bit Waterslide in Real Life', 'Marcel the Shell With Shoes On' and 'Pigeon Impossible'.Finally, yesterday was the last day you were able to hear my new Struwwelpeter song 'Set You Free' as part of BBC Introducing. If you missed it, I of course recorded it myself and you can forever listen to it here.
If you want to hear the song without the intro and strange backhanded editorialising at the end it's part of 'Digital Stimulation', a download-only EP available now and completely free. It includes three songs from 2006's 'Agnosticaust' and three from the forthcoming album 'The Book of Women'. All the tracks are alternate mixes/edits to the ones that appear on the albums themselves and as such are completely exclusive to this release. So download it and spread it around like a delightful musical compote!Download 'Digital Stimulation' by Struwwelpeter
Alternatively you can stream the EP on SoundCloud.
Now for a weekend of showreel editing and updating. Try to contain your envy.

"Introduce Yourself (Right On)"

Some very cool non-animation news this time around. Tune in to BBC Radio Bristol this evening to hear the radio debut of my track 'Set You Free' from the new Struwwelpeter album 'The Book Of Women'! It will be playing as part of BBC Introducing which is broadcast 1am-3am, the peak time for all the happening youths to be at home listening to their radios. But if you can't catch it live then the show will be on-demand from saturday onward for about a week via BBC iPlayer.Happy weekend!

Reaching into my sack of treats

View from my balcony. Pity I can only go out on it for five seconds at a time.

'Hohoho'.
Right, that's enough yuletide spirit for one year.
Although, I do love giving presents. Especially the self-serving ones that promote my shallow li'l projects - and you're not allowed to be ungrateful because I made them myself and after all, isn't that the true meaning of the season?
Yeah, my family doesn't buy it either.I'm reminded of a Dr. Phil holiday special in which he urged the viewing audience not to buy things we think others should have, but things we know that they actually want.
Dr. Phil, in case there's any ambiguity left on this matter, is a redundant boob. Of course you're supposed to give people stuff you think they need at xmas. It's the one time of year you can force your own personal tastes and homemade crap on others. And if they don't like it, remind them that they got it for free and then backhand them.
Yes, I'm an angry, bitter man who will probably die alone.
But that aside, here are two presents from your close personal friend Ben Mitchell that you definitely didn't ask for, but I think you should have. Ain't I a stinker?Firstly, forget this RATM/X-Factor horseshit and instead check out my xmas single! Well, it has nothing to do with xmas, I just got it done last week and I'm too impatient to wait for the new year to put it up. It's called 'Spy Vs. Spy' and can be either streamed on MySpace or, for the next few weeks, downloaded as a full-quality mp3 right...wait for it...here!
The title is an obvious reference to the Prohias comic, which I love, but has nothing to do with it lyrically. More an analogy type-thingy.I've also put together a free preview sampler for "That Isn't Funny, You Stupid Child", featuring the xmas-themed (it's a rip-off of "It's A Wonderful Life") short story "Vicky, Icky & Sticky" in its entirety! So download away, my adorable little buttered muffins, and drink heartily from the overflowing cup of my altruism!
Download "Vicky, Icky & Sticky" - gratis!
Now I'm off to watch old episodes of "Home Movies", drink some Cup-A-Soup and ever-so-gently weep. To all a good night!

New-welpeter!

Check out this week's preview song from the forthcoming Struwwelpeter album 'The Book Of Women'. The new track is called 'Cut & Run', and it's quite peppy. Bung it on if you need some aural caffeine.
Listen already!

Remember MySpace? Anybody?

It's been over three years since 'Agnosticaust', the closest I've ever had to a 'hit' record, was released. In the interim I've been focusing my energies on animation, post-production and all the other crap I rant about it in this blog.
The music side of things hasn't been entirely abandoned, however. In the last few years I produced albums by two very sexy and alluring bands, 'Silverfish' and 'The Labrys Quartet', as well as composing the scores for a handful of independent films. More pertinently, I've been incrementally chiseling away at around thirty songs composed post-'Agnosticaust', and now have nearly two albums' worth of material in the final stages of production.
The first of said albums, tentatively titled 'The Book Of Women', will hopefully be released late 2009/early 2010, depending on the availability of session musicians. In truth, I'm in no big rush and I'd rather take the extra time to make sure each track comes out all lovely and polished. But I'm returning to my near-dormant MySpace account to host exclusive tracks as they become listenable.
The first two are live today, a piano-heavy ballad 'Hello Kitty' and my own cheesy contribution to the synth-pop revival called 'The Other Man'. Please listen, leave feedback and spread the word, because I've been away for a long-ass time as far as this MySpace pimping malarkey is concerned.
Listen to Struwwelpeter on MySpace!