Remember the days of the old schoolyard? Remember when Myspace was a thing? Remember those time-wasting, laborious quizzes that everyone used to love so much? Birthday Cake For Breakfast is bringing them back!
Every couple of weeks, an unsuspecting band will be subject to the same old questions about dead bodies, Hitler, crying and crushes.
This Week: Off the back of releasing their…
Winter Hill part one, listen and download on Bandcamp: https://pilkos-musical-wonderland.bandcamp.com/
My first full length LP with many alternating themes to make your genre definition centres explode; more of a musical adventure than you are used to!!
This project started as an idea back in 2012, before I had even learned to play a musical instrument. Recording the demos was done in tandem with learning how to play, and some of the final melodies, as simple as they are, reflect that.
(Pictured: the nylon string and ukulele from which the original melodies were crudely recorded onto my PC through a really bad lapel mic)
The structure of the album came about after my first journey to the real place Winter Hill with a friend in 2015 as we adventured up through Bolton, past all the old industry, and up to the moor. It was a cold October evening and the ideas started flowing.
(Pictured: original cover art before we set everything on fire)
The nurturing musical environment of the music department in my college really helped to finalise the demos and finish off the sketch of what would become the first and second parts, although compositionally and technically compromised, the overall idea felt solid.
(Pictured: hard at work (citation needed))
Recording what would be the final version took two attempts, the first of which was lost to computer issues, hard drive faults and the like. I lost interest for a couple years because of this.
Winters getting darker and more depressing really spurred on the recording of this final version, recorded between October 2021 and May 2023. Between lockdowns and loss in the family I felt I needed a good escape from it all in this project.
(Pictured: tiny aeroplane man who took over as the mascot of the project, to feature in the video going on a journey around Winter Hill)
It reminded me of the good days I had in music tech class in college and brought me back into that hyper focused music composition mindset I felt I had been missing.
(Pictured: A version of the cover art mirroring on one of my very first school art projects from when I was 5 about the fire of London)
And now part one is finished at last, and I can look forward to recording part two knowing that I have remained faithful and have compromised minimally from the original demos, keeping most of those original ideas alive after over 10 years of sitting on them like a mother hen.
(Pictured: the lights twinkling in the distance; a familiar sight to all in the North West)
I look forward to hearing what you think of it! I might not reply to every post but I do enjoy reading them! It would mean a lot to me.
(Pictured: bbq with the fellas at Winter Hill Aerodrome, "just a couple more!!" said the grill master)