Electric Minnow Music

With plans to release my entire back catalog over the next several days leading up to this year’s RPM, I thought it would be handy to create this guide to help a prospective listener wade their way through the muck should they be so inclined to delve into my past releases, most of which have never seen the light of day prior to now aside from a handful of copies made at the time for myself and a few friends.

The Four Track Years

August 1996 – A New Reality
September 1996 – End Of The Sky
May 1998 – Long Way From Home
August 2010 – Instruxperimental Vol. 1

these albums are basically me learning to write songs on my own, learning to harmonize with myself vocally, and getting material together for my next project, which turned out to be Plaster. Most of the songs are just guitars and vocals. The most interesting stuff here is probably the instrumental stuff where I was experimenting with multitracking, and trying to do some weird, psychedelic stuff. All of the best of that stuff is compiled onto Instruxperimental Vol. 1, which I would recommend grabbing, and skipping over these three unless you are a completist or a masochist or both. The best of the songs from this period have all been re-recorded on later albums.

The Roland Years

In October 1998 I put together my first real home studio centered around the Roland VS-1680. Over the course of the next 3 years, I recorded 11 albums worth of stuff that generally gets progressively better, in terms of songwriting, production, and performance. I recorded the drums by “playing” a drum machine, beating on the pads with my fingers, so as I improved at getting decent drum machine tracks, the listen-ability of the music improves as well, so much so that eventually I was confident enough in the material to “press” CD-R’s of a couple of the albums and sell them at Plaster shows, and even played a couple of solo shows around this time as well.

October 1998 – Astronaut’s Lament
This is the first batch of material recorded with the Roland, and most of it I would consider subpar, though there are a couple of interesting songs and some early versions of Plaster songs. Lots of digital clipping because I was mixing too hot to DAT. I was learning.

February 1999 – New Morning
April 1999 – Hallucination Orbit
July 1999 – Seeds And Stems
March 2000 – Alien Fungus
May 2000 – This Is The Sound Of Losing Control
June 2000 – Coaster

These albums get progressively better but are still hit and miss throughout. Coaster is a compilation of the best material (or what I thought was the best material at the time) from the first 6 albums, and there were probably 100 or so copies pressed on CD-R and given away or sold at the time.

July 2000 – Green Tea Dreams
August 2000 – The Total Understanding Of Being
September 2000 – Forever Fell
September 2000 – 23

These albums almost mostly stand up on their own and I pressed up a few copies of the first two to give to friends, however decided to once again compile the best of the three albums onto “23” to make what I considered to be a stronger overall album for wider distribution.

February 2001 – Journey Into Reality
This was my first pressed/released solo album that wasn’t a compilation of other solo albums…. though I did spend longer putting it together, and there is an EP’s worth of songs that I didn’t use that I have dubbed “Beyond Reality” for the purpose of this reissue project.

July 2001 – The Light That Shines
I consider this to be the strongest collection of songs of anything I’d recorded up until this point, but unfortunately it was never pressed or released at the time due to a number of circumstances, and was only heard by a few. It would be the last album’s worth of solo material I would record for 5 years.

March 2009 – Anthology 1998-2006: The Roland Years
A compilation of what I consider to be the strongest material recorded on the VS1680.

The Transitional Years
From late ’01 through the summer of ’06 I recorded a handful of songs here and there, which may be compiled at some point, however for now the best of the material recorded during this time is available on the 2009 “Roland Years” anthology. Unfortunately a couple of songs from this time period were lost forever when my computer and hard drive were stolen from my house in ’07. In 2008 I put together a patchwork studio together integrating both the 1680 and a computer and recorded a couple of albums worth of stuff with this setup.

July 2006 – Beneath The Trees
Recorded & mixed in Louisiana at Spacelab, my cousin’s studio over the course of 10 days and was my first “online release”.

April 2008 – Mission Of Light
Unreleased concept album that features a lot of weird, and sometimes awkward musical moments and some rough production as I was trying to integrate a computer into my recording setup and making a lot of mistakes while getting it all figured out.

May 2008 – Looking Backwards
An album’s worth of stuff that was about 70% old songs from the 4 Track Era that had never been re-recorded during the Roland era, mainly because I didn’t have much in the way of any new material to record and wasn’t particularly inspired to write any. Still wasn’t very happy with the studio setup and the sound I was getting but was doing the best I could with what I had to work with.

July 2008 – Orbs Of Light
This is my first stab at krautrock and is sometimes somewhat interesting if you are into weird music.

The Computer Setup Mach 1
In January 2009 I finally converted over to a complete computer based studio setup and started learning a mostly new way of recording. As was the case when I started recording with the Roland, production has improved and progressed over the course of the releases, and I’ve been adding more plugins and virtual instruments along the way as well.

July 2009 – There Is No Such Thing As Time & Space

This was the first full solo album that I released since Beneath The Trees, as it was the first that I was happy enough with the production and songwriting to want to share, though I did make the 2008 recordings available later on.

March 2010 – Electrolight
My first album recorded for the RPM challenge.

December 2010 – The Dream EP
A handful of new songs as well as a couple of songs that were recorded over the proceeding months. I had started writing a lot of new material but decided to hold off on recording it until the upcoming RPM album in February.

Feburary 2011 – Love & Magic
A double album recorded for RPM, considered by some to be my strongest album, plus an EP of outtakes included as a bonus.

September 2011 – In The Autumn Of Forever
September 2011 – Today Is Forever EP
September 2011 – Acoustic Leaves

I decided to get obnoxious about releasing albums, though these are all pretty short. In The Autumn Of Forever is the main release, with Today Is Forever basically an EP of outtakes plus my latest krautrock inspired jam, and Acoustic Leaves a collection of acoustic demos/recordings crudely recorded live to a Zoom H4.

The Computer Setup Mach II
In December 2011 I upgraded pretty much every aspect of my computer based recording system with a new interface, a new preamp, a new computer, a new synth, new monitors, new microphones, new guitars, new plugins, new virtual instruments, new everything. While visiting my cousin in Louisiana to consult with him on studio upgrades, I recorded an EP’s worth of stuff in his studio, as well as some drum tracks. I then returned home and got busy recording and learning my way around all of the new equipment in order to be prepared for my ambitious plans for 2012′s RPM challenge.

December 2011 – Spacelab EP
An EP recorded at my cousin’s studio in Louisiana.

December 2011 – Lost In A Dream
December 2011 – Grand Vista EP

Lost In A Dream is the main album with Grand Vista containing outtakes and some 4 track demos, including the title track which is a throwback to my old 4 track experimental instrumental days.

2012 – Looking Ahead
I plan to do a lot of recording in 2012 with my new studio setup, with plans in place for 4 different solo albums for this year’s RPM. After RPM, I will be focusing on some full band recordings with Telestrion and Pickman’s Model but will be recording solo material along the way, releasing EP’s and albums as they come together…

End In Light will be the typical solo release, Once Again This Time With Feeling will be a collection of older songs from the early Roland Years where I think the song is good but am not happy with the production and/or performance, 2012 will be a collection of longer spacerock/krautrock psychedelic freakout type stuff and Cold Lonely Nights will be a stripped down/low-fi album that I plan to record over the course of a couple of days in a hotel room with my 8-track Roland pocketstudio.

ANDY SAMFORD
LOST IN A DREAM

FLAC
320 MP3

01. Nothing Left (2:23)
02. Madman’s Construction (Break Me Down) (4:54)
03. I’d Wait A Million Years (2:43)
04. Alone In The Middle Of Nowhere (3:23)
05. Not Me Not You (2:37)
06. So Lost (2:06)
07. Free High (2:52)
08. I’ll Give You Everything (4:14)
09. The Fool (3:17)
10. I’m Lost In A Dream (5:52)
11. The Last Dream Dies (5:04)

ANDY SAMFORD
SPACELAB EP

FLAC
320 MP3

01. Broken Dreams (3:03)
02. Oh Lord (2:08)
03. Come On Down (5:44)

ANDY SAMFORD
THE GRAND VISTA EP

FLAC
320 MP3

01. The Nameless City (7:05)
02. Away (4:27)
03. One Thousand Times (3:35)
04. Only You (3:25)
05. Alone In The Middle Of Nowhere-Demo (3:46)
06. Oh Lord-Demo (2:32)
07. The Grand Vista (4:15)

SAY ZOHN
LAUGHING FOR NO GOOD REASON (Single)

SIDE A – Laughing For No Good Reason (3:21) 
SIDE B – When I See John Lennon In The Afterlife (5:58)

Andy Samford – Music & Vocals
Jeff Ray – Vocals

Recorded December 10th, 2011 at Furious Midget Studios, Decatur, GA.
(c) 2011 Electric Minnow Music.

GARAGE POETS
V: NON BELIEF SYSTEM

320 MP3

01. Superglue (3:07)
02. Every Rocket Fired At The Moon (3:33)
03. The In Between (2:15)
04. It’s Shne (0:34)
05. The Interview (3:15)
06. The Punishment (3:32)
07. Old Words Of Wisdom (5:15)
08. Enemies Of Springtime (4:11)
09. M-O-N-E-Y (4:13)
10. Like Francis Macomber (3:18)
11. Shrunk (4:50)
12. It’s Shne-Reprise (0:37)
13. Disassembled Gentlemen (3:13)

Jeff Ray – Vocals
Andy Samford – Music

ANDY SAMFORD
IN THE AUTUMN OF FOREVER

320 mp3 album download
FLAC album download
artwork and liner notes download

01. No One Else (5:10)
02. Sleep (3:28)
03. The Only Way (4:23)
04. Purple Starlight (3:44)
05. Forever And Today (4:22)
06. The Source (1:52)
07. Obsessed & Possessed (1:23)
08. Craving Fate (5:20)
09. Curtain Call (5:47)

ANDY SAMFORD
TODAY IS FOREVER

320 mp3 album download
FLAC album download
artwork and liner notes download

01. Zenzizenzizenzic
02. Might Be Time
03. Nothing Is True Not Even You
04. Make It Last Forever
05. No One Else (demo)

ANDY SAMFORD
ACOUSTIC LEAVES

320 mp3 download with artwork and liner notes

01. Science Fiction Double Feature
02. Obsessed & Possessed
03. The Source
04. No One Else
05. Over At The Frankenstein Place
06. The Light In The Window
07. Kills On Contact
08. A Place In Time To Lose Our Minds
09. Don’t Ever Set Me Free
10. Make It Last Forever

SAY ZOHN
The M Portant

320 mp3 album download

01. The Balloon
02. Lillian Darling
03. Magic Beans
04. Gypsy Grown To Giantess
05. Ladies’ Choice
06. Birds Will Fly Backwards
07. Kaleidescope Patterns
08. Pressing Matters
09. Fright
10. Your Reputation Flew In Late Last Night
11. Early Evenings/Bad Tidings

Andy Samford – Guitars, Bass, Drum Sequencing, Synths, Vocals
Jeff Ray – Vocals