Subcity Radio have a new podcast up with a couple of tracks from First & Last plus an interview that I did after the Joe Lally show. I say it's an interview, a more accurate description might be "rambling incoherently" or "the reason why the music I play is instrumental".

You can listen to the podcast by clicking here or view the overview page on Subcity Radio's website here.

Here's a track that I'd almost forgotten about. It is a collaboration with Alan Bissett that was done as the soundtrack for a stop motion animation of Jenny Soep drawing each of us performing at the launch of her exhibition, Drawing the Experience, back in April 2009.

Jenny does great real time illustration of musicians as they perform. She has a real talent for capturing a performance.

Alan is a very talented writer and playwright, hailing originally from Falkirk. His grasp of the rhythm and flow of the Scottish dialect is quite humbling, making it a treat to write music for. The section read is from his latest novel, Death of a Ladies Man.

We're still waiting for the soundtrack to get added to the video but here's the music & words in the meantime.

  Death of a Ladies Man / Music for Jenny

I am very happy to announce that you can now get your hands on one of the eighty-five remaining copies of First & Last, my first solo endevour.

Get your copy of First & Last exclusively from Bandcamp by clicking here.

We are initially releasing the album in a limited edition of one hundred and five hand bound, hard back books. The cover is made from recycled bottles and is printed on high quality recycled paper.

Each song on the album has a corresponding chapter devoted to it alongside contributions from the people that have inspired me over the last twenty years. The contributors are :

Maria Hubbert
Howie Reeve
Luke Fowler
Sarah Lowndes
Danny Saunders
Jer Reid
Toby Paterson
Spudd Connor
Ross Carmichael

You can also now get the album as a download with artwork and a digital version of the book, minus the contributions. The download version is available on a pay what you like basis so feel free to give whatever you think appropriate.

A standalone CD version will be available in all good record shops via Forte Distribution from late January 2010.

As with all of my releases, the music, writing and contributions (with the exception of Jer Reid's) are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 UK: Scotland. This means that you can copy, distribute, perform and derive from everything you see and hear as long as you (a) Give the respective author credit, (b) Use the works in a strictly non-commercial capacity and (c) Release any derivative works under an identical license.

This release also marks the launch of a new open source record label by the name of Ubisano. There will be a lot more details about that to follow in the coming months.

Lastly, Internet-phobics can pick up a copy of the book from Monorail Music in Glasgow from Saturday 19th December.

I hooked up with an old friend today. We originally met when I was about 15 being what seemed to be the only two skaters in Benidorm that year. We bonded over a mutual love of SST Records and learning how to do ollie handrails and stayed good friends for a few years until normal life took over.

Anyway, 20 years on and it turns out that he's now releasing records as The Unknown Wanderer for Soma Records.

Not only that but he's done a really cool reworking of For Maria which you are now welcome to listen to / download and enjoy

For Maria (the unknown wanderer rendition)