||||Rauf Jordan

Atomic Garden Live!

Last weekend I had the honour of taking a trip to Clermont-Ferrand in France to play a gig at “La Cooperative De Mai” for the release of the Atomic Garden record “Arco Iris“. To cut a long story short, two of the previous members of Atomic Garden quit the band last year after recording their latest album leaving only Songwriter/Singer/Guitarist Arnaud Mailler left to carry on. And carry on he did with the help of a few members of I Plead Irony. After roughly 500 miles of travel on Thursday night/Friday morning we arrived in Clermont-Ferrand. Almost immediately we started to practice for the gig (with the odd game of Boules in between) and by Saturday we were ready to rock.

Atomic Garden 2011 + Mayo!

The gig was a resounding success and a fantastic album launch. All the profit from the album sale is going to a cancer charity in memory of Mathieu Bierne founder of YR Letter Records who was a close friend of the band who passed away recently.

So with our bit done we headed home for England. I believe this could be the start of something wonderful.

Atomic Garden - There's a Party In My Head (And I'm Not Invited)

So, what did I do on my seven year wedding anniversary weekend? Well, I made a remix of the Atomic Garden song “Nyctalopia” from their forthcoming album “Arco Iris” for a b-side for their brand new single “There’s a Party In My Head (And I’m Not Invited)” .

“Why?” You may ask. Well, because they are friends of mine. But, also because all of the proceeds from the single are going to a cancer charity in memory of Mathieu Bierne founder of YR Letter Records a dear friend of the band who recently passed away. The single is available from all good digital retailers like Amazon and itunes. Also you may be interested to know that the single ROCKS!! Feel free to get it now!

…and just so you know I’m not totally heartless amongst other things my wife and I also went out for a walk in the woods to look for an old lookout point and ended up at The Crown and Cushion for lunch. All in all a good day. By the way in case any of you don’t know, the seventh year is Wool!

The Fins - And When You Get To The End...

It’s been a while since I posted any news and that is because I have been very busy using every free moment to get The Fins album to press. Finally that day arrived.It has been a long struggle to get it all ready including writing, recording, mixing, mastering, artwork, website and videos but its all been, to quote a song title from the album, “Worth it”!

The Fins new album “And When You Get To The End…” is available for Pre-Order from Amazon here!

But why stop there! I’ve also been busy making video’s. The first of which is a video for the first track off of the album called “This Is Madness”. It was mostly created from still photographs taken by Dave Vokes from LMI Photography, then I stepped in to animate them. You can see the results here! (…and in HD)

I have also been busy building the new website for The Fins. You can go take a look at www.thefins.co.uk.

So, I hope that goes some way to explaining my silence for a while. More things to come!

Its been a busy time of late but at last The Fins album is mixed and ready for mastering. We’ll hopefully be popping down to Hafod Mastering in Wales next week to put the final fairy dust on it and then it will be time to unleash it on the world! After that its the finalising of the artwork and the production of the cd and digitisation for Itunes Amazon mp3 etc. It looks like this end of 2010 is going to be a big one for The Fins and I can’t wait!

It has been a busy beginning of year.  So with that in mind after returning from a brief stint in Thailand I have set about using all my free time to get The Fins album close to completion. It has paid off. Only a few more major things to tackle and then the inevitable snag list. It is sounding amazing. Nearly 2 years in the making from writing to gigging to recording and I think we have a monster record on our hands. I can’t wait to let the world hear it!

So, a friend of mine Martyn Tott, has just written a book called “Six Magic Numbers” and I can tell you its rather good indeed! Its available from Amazon…and if you would like a taste of it or perhaps a try before you buy then you can download the first three chapters here.

He also asked me to record a song he wrote a while ago for the book called “I Long To Be”. He’d already recorded an acoustic version and asked me if I would record a “rocked up” version. So what could I do but say yes! Listen below:

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And for all of you who want a visual idea of what the book is about then check out the trailer below:

Alpha Pilot Album Cover

The Alpha Pilot Album has now been mastered and sent to the factory for production. It will apparently initially come in an orange coloured vinyl. The cover artwork looks great as you can see.

If you are interested in having a listen to Alpha Pilot then you can hear them on their myspace. I think it sounds awesome!

In other news, the drums for the The Fins new album were recorded at Stakeout Studios over the weekend and will be edited this coming weekend. Its all go go go!

Its been a couple of months but I’ve finally finished the mixes for the band Alpha Pilot who are based in France.  They are now ready to go off to get mastered. It should be an amazing record. Massive guitars and riffs in great songs. What more could anyone ask for? Its been a breath of fresh air for me to mix their album and I wish them all the best with the release. It should turn quite a few heads!

The Fins have released a download only single available only from their website. Thier tune “Concrete Shoes” is taken from their forthcoming album which I am working on both as performer and producer. Its quite an undertaking. Anyway, its most definitely worth a listen. Go get your piece of history here.

Those nice fellows The Rifles have decided that they like The Fins so  much that they’ve invited us to play some dates with them on their tour this month to promote their new record “The Great Escape”, which is a cracker by the way! We’re playing in Norwich, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester. A wicked time to be had by all methinks!