Music
in amber
Listen on Soundcloud / Buy on iTunes / Show notes / Show credits
- The Touch Of Us
- Moment Of Clarity
- Last Dance Of The Evening
- Beautifully Possessed
- Legacy Of Love
- The Ones Who Heal
- The Only Revenge Worth Taking
- Unbowed
- Meet You There
Produced, Played and Sung by Nigel Powell
with Bass Guitar by Jason Moulster
Violin and Viola by Anna Jenkins
Cello by Jo Silverston
Speech on Unbowed by Garrick Hagon
Engineered and Mixed by Graeme Stewart
Vocal Recording by George Shilling
Assistant Engineering by Stuart Jones
Vital Aid on Meet You There by Andy Yorke
Recorded at Woodworm and Bank Cottage Studios
Mastered by Tim Turan @ Turan Audio
All Songs, Lyrics and Text by Nigel Powell, all rights reserved
Photography and cover design by Alyssa Nilsen www.alyssanilsen.com
Booklet design by Adrian Powell @ Asriel Creative
Thanks to Avril Walker, Rolf Nilsen, Mika von Hirsch and Trevor Powell for agreeing to be photographed for the cover
Special Thanks to Jenna Hone for her contribution
Thanks to Chris Merkley @ Merk Asylum for early artwork concepts
Thanks to
Cluny and Jacob Powell;
Trevor Powell;
Adrian Powell;
Alyssa Nilsen;
Tarrant, Ben, Matt and Frank;
Cahir O’Doherty;
Kat Jones
After a few years of crazy busyness there was finally enough of a break in the Frank Turner schedule for me to put my mind to writing my own material again. It takes a little while of decompression from the road before that side of my creative being kicks in I've found.
That said, even once I was going I wouldn't have been able to see it as an album without the encouragement of my then girlfriend Alyssa. I had lost confidence in my ability and relevance, but she showed interest and belief in it, so I saw it through.
I worked with Graeme Stewart again, this time in local studios Woodworm. I hadn't worked there before, but I'm glad I tried it because it's wonderful.
As the lyrics were coming together I began to hang it all on the concept of stories in or around an old people's home. Not very rock and roll, but it gave me a framework to focus and complete the lyrics.
Poignant Device
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- Face Down In The Swimming Pool
- I Love Joy
- Dressing Down
- Rescue
- The Healing
- Domestic Drama
- Wedding Songs
Produced and mixed by Nigel Powell
Engineered by Graeme Stewart and George Shilling
Recorded at Racket Recordings, Bank Cottage and The Boiling Room
Played by Nigel Powell and Jason Moulster
Print by Rachel Owen
Designed by Adrian Powell
Mastered by Tim Turan
Thanks to:
Mark, Steve H, Steve R, Pete and Ian for the kind use of Racket
Mark E for helping me set up
Graeme for an amazing drum sound
George and Fi for sounds and hospitality
Alan Cook for mixing facilities
Adrian for designing and the prophecy
My second album, recorded mostly at Marillion's Racket Recordings.It took me a long time to get to my second solo record. I don't have much of an excuse, except where my head was at, slogging through some bad times that whittled my confidence away, and made making music of my own (I was very busy with Dive Dive throughout this period) a fence that the horse of my psyche would refuse every time I approached it. But in the end I felt compelled anyway, even though perhaps in retrospect it would have been better to get my life and my head and my confidence right first.
I honestly remember very little about the writing of it, but it must have come out somehow. I had become friends with Mark Kelly, the keyboardist of Marillion, and I impertinently asked him if I could use their studio, Racket Recordings, while they were away on tour in 2005. I'm insanely grateful that he was insane enough to say yes. Initially I went in and set up with Dive Dive's live sound engineer Mark Eitzen, but he was a little out of his depth, so I called Graeme Stewart who I knew very vaguely from when I did a drum session in Radiohead's studio just outside Oxford, for a movie score that Jonny was doing. He came in and set me up a dynamite drumsound one evening, which was the inspiring springboard that got me throught the remainder of the album.
Every evening for a week, after I'd finished a day at college (and wasn't going straight to the O2 Academy on Cowley Road where I was also working as their in-house lighting guy) I would drive over to the countryside near Aylsbury and lay down drum tracks, as far as I know entirely to the songs and music in my imagination, with only a click track for company. After that I took the songs home and fiddled with them for some time, but couldn't fight may way through my self-doubt, nor come up with sounds that matched up to the excellent drum sound Graeme had achieved, so for a long while it festered.
After I had produced Andy Yorke's wonderful solo album at George Shilling's studio I finally committed to finishing mine as well, so I booked a few days with him where I hammered through guitars, vocals and backing vocals, while Jason came in to provide bass parts and some acoustic guitar that was beyond me. All of the keyboard arrangements had been sorted out at home, bar acoustic piano parts that I laid down on George's beautiful Steinway (with simultaneous vocals on Wedding Songs and Dressing Down).
While I would have liked George to mix it as well, the budget did not extend to that, so I took it away and did it myself, using the studio downtime at the college where I taught. It was a long process, but finally it was ready in early 2007, just as things were getting really busy with Dive Dive's second album release and this beardy solo artist we'd recently started touring with, having already made an album and an EP with him...
Marillion, via Mark, invited me to appear at their biennial weekend in Port Zeland, Holland at the very end of January, so I opted for that to be the 'release date' for the album. It turned out to be quite hectic - we had 3 days off from the tour I was doing playing for Dive Dive, supporting Frank Turner, whom I was also playing for and tour managing. In that time I had to drive to Holland with the band (me on keyboards and vocals, Jason of course on bass, Mike Monaghan who I had met on the music course drumming, and a certain Matt Nasir on guitar), set up, play a show, drive back and then meet the DD / FT tour wherever they were next. And during this I was also driving back between tour dates to teach at the college. I was too old for all that, even then.
miseryguts
Listen on Soundcloud / Buy on iTunes / Show notes / Show credits
- Beginning To Wonder
- Ghosts
- Blind Man
- Pleasure Babies
- The Everlasting Mile
- Directions
- Deep Cover
- Into The Hills
- This Isn't What I Expected
- Gulag Parenting
- You Get My Best
- Chasing The High
Written, Performed Produced, Engineered and Mixed by Nigel Powell
with
Jacob Langley Cymbals
Jason Moulster Bass, Guitar, Vocals
Ken Turner Guitar
Mastered by Tim Turan
Front cover by Rachel Owen
Design by Adrian Powell
This was my first solo album. I started writing it before the breakup of Unbelievable Truth in 2000, initially hoping to get it out not long after that band finished. Mixing and releasing our posthumous compilation Misc. Music put it all back somwhat though. I decided on a 'band' name rather than using mine because 1) I find the standard singer-songwriter output to be massively tedious, and wanted to steer myself away from that as much as possible, 2) I will never be able to get my head around the idea of the name 'Nigel' being remotely rock and roll, and 3) I hoped that at some point it might become a band.
It was all recorded and mixed at my house in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, except for the drums which we interspersed with Dive Dive recording sessions at Tarrant's house in Oxford, usually with him and / or Jamie from Dive Dive engineering. I played a few shows around the album release, some solo shows in houses or small venues, and a smattering of full band shows which included Loz Colbert from Ride on drums and Jamie from Dive Dive on guitar, alongside Jason Moulster, my constant musical partner, playing bass while I held down the keyboards and vocals. I particularly remember the show at The Dublin Castle in Camden, London as not being too bad, but I was learning about 'fronting' a band and didn't feel totally confident in that situation just yet.
It was entirely self-released, on CD only. I don't remember even considering approaching a label at the time, although I hoped the publishers we'd been signed to as Unbelievable Truth might have given me some support, which they didn't, opting to stick with Andy - who wasn't making any music - rather than me. Yes, that's a bit bitter sounding. I'm not really bitter, but I just saw Dave Mustaine at the hotel we're staying in, so maybe it's rubbing off.
miseryguts got some good reviews here and there, mostly in Prog Rock magazines and websites, even an end of year list in a place I've now forgotten, though it's not really a very proggy album. In fact it doesn't really seem to fit naturally into any genre - too proggy to be pop or alternative, but all the songs are too short and too generally bereft of long solos to be prog rock.
It was all recorded and mixed at my house in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, except for the drums which we interspersed with Dive Dive recording sessions at Tarrant's house in Oxford, usually with him and / or Jamie from Dive Dive engineering. I played a few shows around the album release, some solo shows in houses or small venues, and a smattering of full band shows which included Loz Colbert from Ride on drums and Jamie from Dive Dive on guitar, alongside Jason Moulster, my constant musical partner, playing bass while I held down the keyboards and vocals. I particularly remember the show at The Dublin Castle in Camden, London as not being too bad, but I was learning about 'fronting' a band and didn't feel totally confident in that situation just yet.
It was entirely self-released, on CD only. I don't remember even considering approaching a label at the time, although I hoped the publishers we'd been signed to as Unbelievable Truth might have given me some support, which they didn't, opting to stick with Andy - who wasn't making any music - rather than me. Yes, that's a bit bitter sounding. I'm not really bitter, but I just saw Dave Mustaine at the hotel we're staying in, so maybe it's rubbing off.
miseryguts got some good reviews here and there, mostly in Prog Rock magazines and websites, even an end of year list in a place I've now forgotten, though it's not really a very proggy album. In fact it doesn't really seem to fit naturally into any genre - too proggy to be pop or alternative, but all the songs are too short and too generally bereft of long solos to be prog rock.
It was all recorded and mixed at my house in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, except for the drums which we interspersed with Dive Dive recording sessions at Tarrant's house in Oxford, usually with him and / or Jamie from Dive Dive engineering. I played a few shows around the album release, some solo shows in houses or small venues, and a smattering of full band shows which included Loz Colbert from Ride on drums and Jamie from Dive Dive on guitar, alongside Jason Moulster, my constant musical partner, playing bass while I held down the keyboards and vocals. I particularly remember the show at The Dublin Castle in Camden, London as not being too bad, but I was learning about 'fronting' a band and didn't feel totally confident in that situation just yet.
It was entirely self-released, on CD only. I don't remember even considering approaching a label at the time, although I hoped the publishers we'd been signed to as Unbelievable Truth might have given me some support, which they didn't, opting to stick with Andy - who wasn't making any music - rather than me. Yes, that's a bit bitter sounding. I'm not really bitter, but I just saw Dave Mustaine at the hotel we're staying in, so maybe it's rubbing off.
miseryguts got some good reviews here and there, mostly in Prog Rock magazines and websites, even an end of year list in a place I've now forgotten, though it's not really a very proggy album. In fact it doesn't really seem to fit naturally into any genre - too proggy to be pop or alternative, but all the songs are too short and too generally bereft of long solos to be prog rock.
