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2020… What's new?

Writer's picture: Ken WaltersKen Walters

Updated: Dec 3, 2020


Back in January, Nikki and I had high hopes of performing ‘Hammerhead’ in the near future – either as a duo or with Andy joining us keyboards from time to time. By now, we’d have been performing live. It was even a consideration that small festivals later in the year were an option – subject to how things progressed through the summer. Exciting times were ahead of us!


Since then, Carl Peake joined on drums. Carl quickly picked up the component parts of the songs we had written – either electronically or acoustically. Early rehearsals definitely brought the best out of all of us. We all felt we were getting ‘gig ready’ far quicker than we’d anticipated. The sound was brighter and, endearingly, more organic than Nikki and I had ever imagined. The excitement of performing ‘Hammerhead’ grew even more. However, as we all are aware, the devastating presence of COVID-19 in the world has curtailed life in so many ways – and these plans are now on ice until we all know we are safe.


So what has happened since lockdown? Studio time is the answer to that question. Whilst I felt that the second album had been kicking around my head for some time, the focus for 2020 was all about getting ‘gig ready’ and finding the audience for Cloudbase to perform ‘Hammerhead’ – as a four piece as it transpired. Writing and collaborating with Nikki, Andy and Carl for the second album certainly felt like a task for 2021 at the earliest… maybe longer… and maybe, influenced by how the audience responded to ‘Hammerhead’.


With time in isolation, starting work on the second seemed the prudent thing to do. And, after a month or so, I feel the foundation of the second album is close to being formed from a 'musical' perspective. So what do we take from this? The benefit of having this time to focus on a large(r) body of music is that it feels a lot more cohesive than 'Hammerhead' i.e. written in one single creative period rather than developed over time. In addition, it has been completed so quickly and efficiently.


To take it to completion, I still have the guitar components to work on; Nikki will be working on lyrics and melodies shortly; Carl and Andy collaborating on the percussion and keyboards respectively in due course – but it is satisfying to think that the new material is approaching completion earlier than anticipated. This will mean that when we can go back in the studio to rehearse, there will be some new tracks to add to the set that was almost gig ready!


Catch you soon… Oh, and Nikki and I still owe you some blogs on the ‘Hammerhead’ track list.





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