Aqualung on Facebook!

Hi Folks!
Just a quick note to let you all know that Aqualung is now on Facebook!
Click here to add Matt and start spreading the word around your friends!

Aqualung Team.

2:49 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

They think it’s all over...

Dearest Dudes and Dudettes,

Hello again from London in England.
I hope you're all well and have found that thing you mislaid.

If you are one of the Dudes or dudettes that live in america then I'd like to congratulate you on a fine choice of new president dude. The other dude used to be kinda cool but the dudette??

Anyway I hope you're pleased. I'm pleased. Feels like a big wave of pleased-ness has washed over all of us.
My children are brown, and now they'll grow up with another brown dude in charge of america. So they might never even have to wonder why all the pink dudes seemed to be in charge. And so the world is changed.

Even more important than all that, my new website is here (with scissors as promised).
I imagine some of you are wondering why there's no forum/msg board thing.
It's not because I want to silence you. It's just being re-jigged to work inside the new site. It will arrive shortly and we can all start posting and reading and opining and disagreeing. Splendid.

I had a lovely time on my little tour. Thanks to everyone who came along and sang along and made me play songs that I'd forgotten all about. Turns out I quite like playing on my own - it felt like a proper conversation. I think I'll do some more in some more places. I'll let you know where and when.

Feel free to get the new album, and let me know what you make of it. It's deliberately gentle - I needed to make a cup of hot chocolate on a winters evening with a storm outside but cosy inside sort of record. It is winter now and I hope it brings a little soothing warmth whenever it comes on...

I think it's all over...
It is now.

Matt
X

2:39 PM - 10 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

Don’t you just hate it?

Don't you just hate it when people leave out of date blogs posted on their front pages for months at an end?
It's like going round someone's house in April and finding cobwebbed Christmas decorations and ancient-old-man's-balls-balloons dangling everywhere. it just screams 'DISTRACTED' or possibly 'DEAD'. It certainly suggests 'I'M NEVER COMING BACK' . And who could blame you...

So I apologise. It's my fault. I have been distracted, but I'm not yet dead.



How's things? Really? Oh well...

I started 2008 in Los Angeles which is in America. (WWWesscoasss') (west coast).


I was there producing an album for a band called KaiserCartel. They are two elementary school teachers from Brooklyn. One is called Courtney and is a girl. The other one is called Benjamin and is a boy. Courtney (guitar, vox, piano, drums) is extremely cat-ish and Benjamin (drums, vox, guitar, birthdays) is extremely dog-ish. You would expect them to just chase each other around the studio the whole time yapping and hissing but they didn't. Not all the time. They both have wonderful voices and make music that is simultaneously eccentric and classic. They use no bass - I like this because you can really hear the kick drum and the thrum of the acoustic guitars.


I made Courtney record the sound of their house to put into one of the mixes because I wanted the place that the songs come from to be in the recording somewhere but it got left off in the end. That means I've got a recording of their apartment which I like to listen to and imagine I'm not me. But them. And they're not them. But me....
The album we made together is called 'March Forth' and will be out in June on bluhammock. I'm proud to have been involved in it. I suggest you check it out.



Why am I writing in such short sentences? I guess I'm thinking in short bursts to save energy.



After mixing their album (mixing hurt my brain) I turned my attention to the mighty 'lung. I decided to celebrate my independence by recording a selection of lungsongs from the 3 records in an all-new twinkly acoustic style. Me and Ben (brother, younger, hairier, big hands) and Dave (over-talented, sweetfaced, hairy, medium hands rising to large by late afternoon if bongo-d) are doing it. So far it sounds rather lovely. Maybe next time I'll let you hear some... If any of you have any great titles for an album of acoustic reworkings I'd be interested to hear them. Otherwise it'll probably be called 'ACOUSTICON 4: SOUND BEYOND SOUND'.


Help me.



Hope your Aprils go well,

love from

matt
x

2:11 AM - 24 Comments - 36 Kudos - Add Comment

Personal message from Matt

People of earth,

My name is Matt. I am a music making killer robot disguised as a spekky loser. My will is my command.
Or if you prefer:
Hello everyone,
Hope your week/life is going to plan.
My week/life is as unpredictable as ever.
So, about 3 days after Memory Man (Memory Nan) was finally released in the UK and Europe we were dropped by our record label.
Not accidentally dropped like a vicar's tea cup, but hurriedly, urgently dropped like a hot potato with a poo-covered plaguebomb in it.

So I was furious, then sad, then bored. Then I realised it might actually be a good thing. Big record companies and traditional record deals are very 20th century things as they are busy discovering.
I have a feeling the future for musicians like me lies elsewhere.
Where exactly? Well we shall see. Already a lot of excellent things are starting to happen. A new chapter is beginning. Killer music robots of the world unite!

X matt

Ps. I'm afraid you'll have to wait for a proper tour whilst we sort ourselves out. We'll get out and see you as soon as we can. We have the following 2 dates onsale now however;
Nov 19 Brighton Digital £8.50 London
http://www.gigantic.com/gigantic/search.aspx?d=&l.title=aqualung&l.town=brighton<
Nov 20 London Kings College (over 14s) £12.50
DVDs

Highlights from 2 concerts – an intimate duo "Matt and Ben" gig and a full band gig "It's easy to play the Aqualung way" – an hilarious "teach yourself" guide plus many Aqualung promo videos and more…

CDs

A collection of all the impossible to get B sides, and a CD of Aqualung remixes…

…plus Japanese-only editions, T shirts, mugs and more…

Every order over £6 will receive a free copy of "Aqualung Radio & Rarities; For anyone


Aqualung Shop


Team Aqualung x

10:18 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy afternoon everyone.

A few weeks ago on an internal/infernal flight from somewhere to somewhere
else, a flight attendant started an announcement with "happy afternoon".
Seemed a bit excessive to me. Happy birthday - sure. Happy anniversary?
Perfectly fine. Even 'happy June' seems ok but happy afternoon, with maybe a
little 'happy afternoon' card with a sleepy-eyed bear slumping over his
workstation.....it's just wrong.

Happy afternoon everyone. Could you pick up some milk on the way home? Ta.
Having dealt with the tricky question of "what is music?" last time (and
thanks for all YOUR thoughts btw) what shall I pointless about today? Well
I've been doing yet more interviews and another question that keeps coming
up is "what exactly IS success?" The journalists don't actually ask that
question but I have been tending to try and answer it anyway. After a few
days of press you tend to answer the questions they ask less and less. I
pity the last interview of the day as they get JUST PURE SHIT from me.....

So what is success? Here's a fun game:
choose which of the following outcomes would count as successful in your
life:

Wealthy and influential
Married with 2 kids
Ignored by everyone
Noticed by everyone
New 'friend' every weekend
Celibate but with an enormous ding a ling
Look like a duck
Boring job spectacular weekends
Boring job boring weekends
Saving the world but bad hair
Absolutely brilliant hair
Decent hair
Optician

It's been proven (by science) that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD has a different
definition of success. Yet THE WORLD sets out a few narrow presciptive
parameters and says everything outside them is FAILURE and WRONG and STUPID.
Yeah!

I am not, by the usual measures, a particularly successful musician. I can't
fill a stadium anywhere. (even my gig at the Catford Mouse-Stadium was only
half full) my albums refuse to go to no.1 and i've been dropped more times
than a monkeys' yo-yo.
But I am doing what I love with people I love and some people in the world
love what we do. And i'm happy more often than i'm sad.
There we are then.

Have a good day please.
Matt

Ps i'm doing a proper UK tour for the first time in 3 and a half years
starting mid october. Come see me. x

3:00 PM - 11 Comments - 17 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy afternoon everyone.

A few weeks ago on an internal/infernal flight from somewhere to somewhere
else, a flight attendant started an announcement with "happy afternoon".
Seemed a bit excessive to me. Happy birthday - sure. Happy anniversary?
Perfectly fine. Even 'happy June' seems ok but happy afternoon, with maybe a
little 'happy afternoon' card with a sleepy-eyed bear slumping over his
workstation.....it's just wrong.

Happy afternoon everyone. Could you pick up some milk on the way home? Ta.
Having dealt with the tricky question of "what is music?" last time (and
thanks for all YOUR thoughts btw) what shall I pointless about today? Well
I've been doing yet more interviews and another question that keeps coming
up is "what exactly IS success?" The journalists don't actually ask that
question but I have been tending to try and answer it anyway. After a few
days of press you tend to answer the questions they ask less and less. I
pity the last interview of the day as they get JUST PURE SHIT from me.....

So what is success? Here's a fun game:
choose which of the following outcomes would count as successful in your
life:

Wealthy and influential
Married with 2 kids
Ignored by everyone
Noticed by everyone
New 'friend' every weekend
Celibate but with an enormous ding a ling
Look like a duck
Boring job spectacular weekends
Boring job boring weekends
Saving the world but bad hair
Absolutely brilliant hair
Decent hair
Optician

It's been proven (by science) that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD has a different
definition of success. Yet THE WORLD sets out a few narrow presciptive
parameters and says everything outside them is FAILURE and WRONG and STUPID.
Yeah!

I am not, by the usual measures, a particularly successful musician. I can't
fill a stadium anywhere. (even my gig at the Catford Mouse-Stadium was only
half full) my albums refuse to go to no.1 and i've been dropped more times
than a monkeys' yo-yo.
But I am doing what I love with people I love and some people in the world
love what we do. And i'm happy more often than i'm sad.
There we are then.

Have a good day please.
Matt

Ps i'm doing a proper UK tour for the first time in 3 and a half years
starting mid october. Come see me. x

3:00 PM - 33 Comments - 61 Kudos - Add Comment

Aqualung - Memory Man – The New Album

"This album never flags, and how Hales can, unassisted, create a sound as big and complicated as that of any five-piece rock band on the planet is a mystery"

POP CD OF THE WEEK
The Sunday Times


Memory Man – the spellbinding new album from Aqualung premieres eleven new Aqualung songs, each of them written or co-written by Hales with his long-time collaborators: brother Ben and "co-pilot" Kim Oliver. Highlights include Outside, Rolls So Deep, Something To Believe In and Garden Of Love which features guest vocals from Paul Buchanan (of The Blue Nile).

Recorded between May and October 2006, Memory Man was produced by Matt Hales and co-produced by Ben Hales and Dan Swift (Snow Patrol, Art Brut). The album was mixed in Los Angeles by Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Lostprophets).

Memory Man is out now, Buy it Here.

"Outstanding!"
Q

"Hales dramatic chord changes show a keen awareness for stadium filling dynamics"
Uncut

"Absolutely beautiful"
Daily Express

"The fragile falsetto set against a progressive wall of sound ensures that they will not go away"
The Times

"Finely-wrought pop"
The Daily Mail

"Surprisingly Epic"
NME

So long

Aqualung HQ

www.aqualung.net


www.myspace.com/aqualung

Currently listening : Memory Man By Aqualung Release date: 13 March, 2007

1:56 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment