WHIMSY RODGERS - EXCLUSIVE TRACK (Patreon)

So... secret's out. I'm making an album. Chris Jerden-Cooke - now going by the name Jerden Cooke - and I have long planned to release a compilation of tracks featured on the channel, and that's sort of how this started life... However, having relatively recently started making my own music in Garageband, it kind of took on a life of its own, and became a legitimate thing.

Music, perhaps more so even than video games, has always been my number one passion in life. Despite reports that I listen to nothing other than Marillion, I've got very broad, very eclectic, tastes. This isn't the first time I've tried to make music either - I've had a couple of abortive attempts over the years, but always let my lack of confidence defeat me. I'm not getting any younger, so - heck - I thought it'd be a laugh to do this before I die.

Consequently, Sound Footage has become an album of mostly new music, with a few tracks you'll know from recent episodes of Lost Footage. I've also made good use of other sounds from Found and Lost Footage, as you'll hear in this track - that's otherwise a sort of mash-up between John Carpenter and Pink Floyd. Not that I'm fit to kiss their knees, but that's kind of what I'm going for...

There was an earlier version of it with a completely different back half. I might let you listen to that at some point. 

The album as a whole has turned out far better than I could've expected - I mean, I really, really like it. It won't be for everyone - prog rarely is - but every track is different, while also sounding like a coherent whole, I think. It was very much my attempt to make a modern prog rock album using samples and loops (barring a few 'proper' pieces from Jerden Cooke - including the track that made up the climax of The End). 

But it's the sort of prog that I like - which kind of incorporates elements of dance, pop, ambient, rock... I mean, I still feel like a charlatan given I can't play music, but I've loved doing it, and it's just meant to be a bit of fun. Sound Footage is very much "produced by" rather than "written by".

I'm not sure when - or how - I'm going to be releasing this, but here's a preview anyway. It's the longest track on the album - most of them are a lot shorter (both of my favourite tracks are around the 5 minute mark), but you can't have prog without at least one 'epic'. At the moment, the album is about 15 minutes too long, so this might not even end up on there... but given the sound clips it uses, I thought you'd appreciate it. 

You'll be glad to hear that we're still doing the compilation album - maybe around Christmas, once this is out there. 

Right. Enjoy. Now got to go and plan this week's episode for the channel, which is going to be horribly late... 

Paul