Archive for February 2021

Dubs: Volume 1 – Coming Soon

Posted on 5th February 2021 in Patreon, Releases

The first EP from our new project “Dubs: Volume 1”, is due for release on the 5th March 2021 and is available to pre-order now from DustStore.com and Bandcamp.

Our supporters over on Patreon will get all the downloads for this, including CD-quality 16bit WAV and MP3, along with ultra-high-definition 24bit 96khz lossless WAV and FLAC files. You can join and support us from the price of a decent beer each month: https://www.patreon.com/theblackdogma/

In More Detail
“Dubs” is a project that we’d talked about for a couple of years but never really had the time to focus on, as it required a lot of research and leg work to put together. We eventually started in January of 2020 but little did we know what would be happening by March.

“Dubs” deals with our history in Sheffield and The Black Dog, sometimes literal and sometimes not. Come with us on a journey through music, photography and words, as we try to explain our relationship with Sheffield in the best way we can.

The original vinyl release is a special limited edition vinyl package, simply because we like to make beautiful things. There’s something about creating a body of work and putting it out in a complete form that is so satisfying. This is the first of 4 unique volumes.

Music For Photographers

Posted on 4th February 2021 in Patreon

After the positive response, we had to last year’s “Fragments”, we’ve decided to start a new project exclusively for our supporters: Music For Photographers.

We’ll deliver a new track each month on Patreon to build what may, or may not, be full album somewhere in the distant future. These demos are currently exclusive to our supporters, so head over to Patreon if you’d like to get involved.

https://www.patreon.com/theblackdogma

Project Background
Music For Photographers was born out of necessity. Many of you will know that I’m a photographer and so, we are incorporating some of that into our work with The Black Dog. It made total sense to do this because strong imagery has always been a large part of our work. In 2021, you’ll see more of this integrated into our new projects starting with Dubs and Brutal, both of which have been slowly developing behind the scenes for the last 2 years.

Photography has made me question many things and more than any other art I’ve been involved in before. It’s knocked my confidence for six and then kicked me again while I’m on the ground. Not because it’s technically difficult, it isn’t, but it is hard to define the story, find the lines and compose the image.

Sometimes, I’d have to visit place 5 or 6 times because I’d failed, rushed or missed focus. It was frustrating, but I’m persistent if not yet consistent. I needed to slow the fuck down, take my time and relax into a place. This sounds so easy, but it was a hard lesson to learn.

So, we started recording music for visits to places and playing them on loop, over and over. The only rule for a day of shooting was that I had to listen to 7 tracks before leaving. When creating the music, we specified “no human voices” or anything to pull you out of that head-space. It had an immediate effect. Not only did I capture what I wanted on the first visit, but the quality of the shots went up considerably. Now, I’m not saying the music was a silver bullet, but it did help to slow me down and consider the environment far more. Things just clicked.

Now we are sharing this music exclusively with you, our Patreon supporters. We’ll be releasing at least one new track per month for you to download. We hope it finds a place in your working day.