.png)
THE STRANGE WORLD OF SHY YETI...
Hey beasties!
Those of you have been listening to the most recent episodes of The Shy Life Podcast will know that I've been having fun putting together some suitably bizarre songs that I have been including in recent episodes. Well, I've finally got enough to put together an album on Bandcamp. It's 18 songs long - 14 original songs with 4 extended or alternate versions. The album was put together using AI on Udio - with me writing all the lyrics (that's why they're so odd!) and Udio doing the hard work with the music; although it does take quite a lot of human power before it starts coming up with strong tunes and instrumentals - so you do have to do a lot of guiding; but that made it all the more fun.
Here's the track list!
.JPG)
THE STRANGE WORLD OF SHY YETI
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CATHERINE CRUMB
A GHOST IN MY SUGAR
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
BEARS WHO EAT PIES
BEST BET
DANCE OF THE STONES
DEELEY THE WERECAT
DISCO JELLY FISH
I LOST MY KEYS
LUCA THE TIME TRAVELLING BEAR
MASTER TINY, GIANT JIM
MY FAVOURITE MONSTER
SQUEAKY KERFUFFLE
SUTTON PARK (A VERY STRANGE PLACE)
BEARS WHO EAT PIES (12" MIX)
DANCE OF THE STONES (VERSION 2)
DANCE OF THE STONES (VERSION 3)
SQUEAKY KERFUFFLE (12" MIX)
Here's a little piece about each of the songs and also why I even wanted to do the album!
To be honest, I've always wanted to write songs lyrics - going back to when I was a performance poet and was regularly publishing collections of my verse... A lot of my poems were written in a verse chorus style. More recently friends had been playing around with Ai music sites and two of my old poems - MY DOG IN A DRESS and LITTLE PIG were turned into songs; but then another online friend told me spefically about Udio and so I was able to start playing with tunes and lyrics myself. I quickly found that the lyrics played a bit part in shaping what the Ai did and also that to get the best result you (as in ME!) need to put a lot into guiding what the Ai tries to do. You certainly don't get the good tunes immediately and have to keep throwing the lyrics back in until you get something good. Each sample of a song is only 30 seconds long and when you get a sample that you like you have to start building on it - adding an intro and further verses and instrumentals and an appropriate ending. I definitely learnt how to use the site as I worked on more songs and sometimes there was no good ending so I'd have to do a spot of editing off site. I also learnt to put plenty of instrumentals in between each verse/chorus section - partly to let the lyrics breathe and partly because it gives you something fun to dance about to! I mostly stuck to pop, indie or new wave/electro style songs as - although Ai can do far more genres - I decided I wanted to do songs that I loved listening to as you certainly have to listen to them a lot of times when you're working on them. The genres that I chose are genres that I listen to and love most of all! As listeners can tell I'm a bit of dance floor diva and experimenting with instrumental outros is one of the reasons I ended up with some longer mixes, which I refer to as the 12 inch mixes.
Here's a bit more about each song! As Roxette used to say on their albums - my motto is definitely "Don't bore us... Get to the chorus..."
THE STRANGE WORLD OF SHY YETI
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CATHERINE CRUMB
A very silly song about a lady named Catherine - the keeper of the cakes. It simply started as a simple idea to write a song about cakes in some form or other. It's one of my favourites - but then I love all the songs on the album!
A GHOST IN MY SUGAR
This song came about because of an Italian sentence that I was taught on Duolingo - which was literally, "Help! There's a ghost in my sugar!" It just really tickled me!
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
I pretty much wrote this one because I thought it would be silly to write a song about artificial intelligence using artificial intelligence.
BEARS WHO EAT PIES
This was sort of a re-write of a poem that I used to perform; but I started again from scratch.
BEST BET
This was originally a song that I wrote with Harry. He wrote the music and I wrote the words and we even recorded us singing it back in 2022, I think it was. My original lyrics had to be condensed in Harry's version to fit the music - whereas this time sadly Harry's input was lost. One of the versions not on the album came out sounding like it was sung by Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys!
DANCE OF THE STONES
I wrote this one to go with an episode of The Shy Life Podcast (#724) which focused on a trip to Avebury. Three different versions with completely different styles and tunes were completed and the other two versions appear later on in the album. This version and the also the next song almost sound like they've escaped from a Disney movie.
DEELEY THE WERECAT
One of the first songs that I wrote for the album and it's about Deeley, my cat! Super catchy!
DISCO JELLY FISH
Another early experiment using Udio and it was vaguely based on a poem that I'd written in the 2010s.
I LOST MY KEYS
Originally I wanted to write an over-dramatic ballad in the style of Adele or Celine Dion about losing your keys - because I thought it was a daft idea and I think a lot of ballads seem over-blown and silly anyway! I love a power ballad, but Udio was going more for the soppy ballad style when I began to try and work on it - so I decided that I'd go for something more euro-disco. As much as anything, you have to spend a lot of time listening to the songs when you're putting them together - so there's nothing worse than spending time with a song that you don't like the sound of!
LUCA THE TIME TRAVELLING BEAR
This one's more late 70s/80s new wave in style and it's named after my friend Gianluca who appears on the podcast. A few of the early songs were written specifically referencing the names of friends who have been very supportive of me in recent months. I'm not sure why I made Luca a time travelling bear... it just seemed to make sense at the time! I love the ending of this; the Ai just came up with the whooping vocal which I thought was so different, unusual and - hopefully - memorable.
MASTER TINY, GIANT JIM
This song was written for my friend PJ and it's all about a relationship between a submissive giant and his rather over-bearing friend. Not that PJ is either of those; it just came from a conversation that we had about giants and tinies. It's quite a goth pop anthem and there are quite a few different versions of this one - maybe I'll share some more of them on the next album as extra tracks.
MY FAVOURITE MONSTER
Another early track. In fact I think it was the very first one that I completed. It's dedicated to my friend Mateusz (aka Grizzly) who I have done a lot of recording with on the podcast in the last year. "Matty" gets a name-check in the song. Thanks to Mateusz also for helping with the album cover! I love this one SO much! ;)
SQUEAKY KERFUFFLE
This is based on a poem that I wrote a while back now called MICE, TAP-DANCING which I've always been fond of. It was the last song to be completed for the album. SQUEAKY KERFUFFLE is a line from the song and was one of the titles that Udio suggested and so I thought that I'd keep it! This version is the shorter radio edit version!
SUTTON PARK (A VERY STRANGE PLACE)
Another early track written for the album - I had to do one about Sutton Park; the bizarre improvised video series that I made between 1992 and 2001, with many returns in different formats since! This one definitely has early Human League and Cure influences - although it's pretty poppy too!
BEARS WHO EAT PIES (12" MIX)
An extended version of this track. More chance to have a little dance around the living room!
DANCE OF THE STONES (VERSION 2)
The second version of this song! It's sort of in the style of a mid-80s indie band such as Propaganda.
DANCE OF THE STONES (VERSION 3)
This third version has more of a indie dance pop feel!
SQUEAKY KERFUFFLE (12" MIX)
An extended version of this track! Plenty of opportunity for dancing!
So anyway! The album is now available on Bandcamp and it was quite difficult to choose which versions to use for some of the tracks, but I got there eventually! The full album runs to 1 hr 04 minutes, 33 seconds, 45 minutes for the 14 track and then almost another 20 minutes for the 4 remixes. The album costs £3 on Bandcamp - although you can donate more. Anything I make from the album will go towards hosting fees for THE SHY LIFE PODCAST.
The album is dedicated to my friends, especially Gianluca, Mateusz, Muffleyontour, PJ and, of course, the wonderful Deeley Cat!
