Hold Your Breath...

"I held my breath for as long as I could
We didn't speak but our eyes understood
Silence so holy, we worship the night
It's going to be fine, alright

Lost in fires how my mask fell away
Sweet suffocation, I grieve as I gave
Silence so holy, your eyes made me blind
It's going to be fine, alright

Because the ones you knew
They'll always come through"

- Excerpt from "Hold Your Breath", a song from THE WORLD CONSPIRES, 2018

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From Berlin

I’m writing this blog from Berlin (lucky me!), where I’ve been spending the last three days shooting a music video of grand proportions with Feline (of Feline and Strange), and basically just hanging out in her and her partner Christoph's beautiful flat - they have an e-grand piano, a real grand piano and I have a bedroom all to myself! I'm being looked after and I’m very happy here. 

Berlin is starting to feel like a second home. Feline has taken me burlesque clubbing and I call her “mistress” cos she’s a boss. It’s been beautiful starting a new friendship, especially with someone who I connect with so well on a musical level. Last night we invented a new genre of dancing called Chicken Punk. It must be witnessed.

I’m very blessed to be connected to this giant musical web of people who inspire me to continue doing what I’m doing. I fucking love my life.

The music video we’re making is suitably apocalyptic to match the new song we released on Patreon last month, “Cassandra’s Twin”. You can listen to it here.

We’re also doing an impromptu gig at Fargo, TONIGHT. I’ll be taking requests. Here is the Event details.

I’m hoping Feline and I will get to write more together and hopefully record an EP for you guys too. If you want support her, she has her own Patreon page here and it’s awesome. I should know. I am a Patreon :) 
 

(the set of Cassandra's Twin)
 

Farewell 2017

Anyway, I thought it's high time I did a long blog.

A lot has happened in 2017, some truly amazing steps for this band. It’s by far been our busiest and most productive year we’ve ever had… and we show no sign of slowing down.

Reflecting back we’ve done some incredible things - toured the world (avoiding earthquakes and hurricanes), played an insane amount of shows, made some pretty ambitious music videos (did you see the tank?) and through all that time we’ve kept the Patreon thing going!

Cos it’s working. YES.

I’m so proud that’s we’re still doing this, still writing, still touring and creating… do you know the band it’s been 10 years since our first release “The Trouble”? Absolute madness.

Patreon has been an absolute life-saver for us, you’ve no idea how much. It’s literally the best thing ever we could hope for as an indie band. We need funding to make this happen. And we are truly blessed that you want us to make this happen. Thank you to all of you who have ever pledged and continue to pledge. 

Did you know we gained 118 new patrons this year alone? Wunderbar.

If you've still not joined and looking to, have a look at ALL THE THINGS we've created so far.

Scars

On a more serious note, my personal life has been somewhat strained this last year. For me, 2018 is set to be a year of change, growth and putting my life back together after some turbulent and slightly traumatic life experiences. I'll blog more about this later but it's just still a bit much right now. 

On top of everything I’ve been diagnosed with BiPolar (no surprises there) which I’m now getting the correct medication for. It's early days but a big step for me to get my mental health in order and I’m so grateful to all my friends who’ve supporting me during my down-times and put up with my manic swings over the years (some of you are patrons). I *think* the new meds are starting to kick in and my highs and lows are evening out slightly… though it can be hard to tell.

In the meantime I'm staying well clear of alcohol while the medication does it's job, and throwing myself fully into music and exercise. I've almost done a month so far. It feels really good. The band and Simon my manager have been more supportive than ever, they are propping me up and making me focus on writing/running/practice/laughing. It works.

Although it's been a rough year, it does mean that this new album is going to have balls. These songs are (in my humble opinion) the best songs we’ve ever written. They are raw, but meticulously well-executed, stylish and above all - dark as fuck. Out of the worst experience comes the strongest songs, so if 2017 is anything to go by then these songs will have fangs...

Here's to a better year. And more music.

The World Conspires

Anyway, all I can tell you about now the new album is that it’s going be called “The World Conspires” and it will be a concept album about love and loss.

For those of you into our heavier music (fans of Tool, Marilyn Manson, Deftones, Opeth), I can tell you now your are going to love this one.

It’s prog-metal-doom-lush-orchestra-emo-grandiose-shit. But fear not, if you’re an old-school BEB fan who loved the punk-cabaret then we’ve got some of that too.

And some music videos to add. And lots of swearing. And gin. And we decided with this album that we give no fucks… we’re gonna write exactly what we want. To be fair I can’t really remember when we last gave a fuck.

The track listing so far looks a bit like this:
 

THE WORLD CONSPIRES

1. Hold Your Breath

2. Zero Forty-Three

3. The World Conspires

4. Better Man

5. Hurricane

6. Box of Razorblades

7. How Do I

8. Painkiller

9. Esmerelda

10. Lady Gray

11. Ropes

(most likely not in this order)

And more to be added. I’m a big fan of meaty albums, and ones that travel a lot through genres and moods. That’s why I love Radiohead albums, each one takes you somewhere else. We’re hoping this will be our OK Computer. It’s fairly proggy, but still catchy as fuck and plenty of riffs. Lots of head-banging ones plus our own signature suicide-rock sound. I’ll be recording on my new piano. Fuck yes. 

We’ve really taken our time with the writing process and worked more together as a band than ever before. Garry and I have spent a lot of time just working on the most beautiful chord progressions and how to build up interesting textures. We’ve been listening to a lot of classical music, mostly Rachaminov preludes, Schubert sonatas and Chopin Nocturnes uh duh. It definitely sounds different. But good different. We're in the studio next week adding the basic drum parts and that's when everything will start to take structure. I'm far too excited.

We’ve all improved as musicians so we might have to use a bit of our new-found magical powers on this one.

We’ll be releasing tracks one at a time across Patreon over the next few months so make sure you’re signed up to be the first to listen. You really do not want to miss the creation of The World Conspires.

I have the front-cover art concept. It involves horses. That is all.
 

Hole/System of a Down cover

This month Birdeatsbaby have covered songs from two incredibly different bands. We're releasing them (as usual) on Patreon only.

Hole are my personal favourite from the teenage-Mish era (Live Through This) is, in my opinion, one of the greatest albums of all time). “Dying” is actually off the following album “Celebrity Skin” which although isn’t their best has a few brilliant songs, this one included.

This song pretty much sums up how I’ve been feeling recently, and the lyrics have been reverberating round my head. I actually found it quite a difficult track to cover… I couldn’t find a way to do it without sounding too close to the original. I wasn't adding anything. Eventually, instead of doing a carbon copy I decided to do the main bulk of it using only vocals. I’ve always been inspired by Bjork’s “Medulla” album and wanted to do something similar (without the budget for an eskimo choir unfortunately).

I also completely reworked the chord system by replacing Bm, G, D chords with Dm6, C#dim7(+F) and Gm6(maj7) or something like that. I love my music theory. I’m a geek. The melody completely fits the chords and is note for note the same but the complex chords give it a very strange texture. The chorus is built up with Hana’s lush strings and Forbes and I put a tidy drum loop to it. Voila! Courtney Love would probably be like WTF but I do what I want.

I’ve made a music video too, just cos I couldn’t stop myself. It involves balloons and a wig. 

The System song is a favourite of Forbes and you can see why. Mental drums, mental guitars and mental vocals too. I have to say recording this was a lot of fun and an insane vocal work out! It's nice to know I could *almost* do a duet with Serj Tankian one day haha. We didn’t change much stylistically but still sounds different to the original (esepcially if you spot the Scottish accent and strings) and a worthy homage to one of rock’s weirdest bands.

As I said before, these songs are going to be released PATREON ONLY. We ain’t gonna put em out anytime soon or possibly ever so if you want to hear, download and watch the music video then I can’t say it enough - you gotta sign up and it only costs a dollar.

The songs will be released later this month along with some rewards for our higher tier patrons - a bonus folder full of pics and stuff ($5+), my personal video blog from Brighton and Berlin ($15+), live streaming shows and studio sessions on 21/24/25/26 of this month ($25+) and something from Berlin for our themed merchandise ($50+).

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One a final note, it’s been really, really fun spending last year making shit for you guys. I really hope you’ll stick around for another year and please, as always, please tell me if there’s anything you would like to receive, or changes you’d like us to make, criticism or suggestions, our ears are open.

Yours eternally gratefully,

X Mishkin X