Ah, May. After a few years of education it's all too easy to write it off as a month defined by stress: from primary school exams to GCSEs to A-levels to the place I find myself now: the dreaded dissertation.
And what a disservice that is to a beautiful month! Take away those pressures and you're greeted with a lovely optimism. The days are getting ever-longer, the sun is increasingly out (insert UK weather joke here), and everything and everyone just seems to be brightening up day by day. The best part, though, is that the whole of summer still lies ahead. Like, you know how Sundays are slightly depressing because they indicate that the weekend is almost over? In that sense, May feels like a Friday. Oh, the impending possibilities!
Plus, for me at least, the educational connotations are likely to be in the rear-view from this year onward. Yes, as indicated, this month marked the completion of my dissertation.
In most cases I'd forgive you for assuming that the end of my dissertation doesn't really affect you in any way. Indeed, you're probably still right in this case. However, because I go to a Fun University™, my dissertation has not merely taken the form of a big essay, but as a whole new album! That's right - while my second album took 3 or 4 years to complete, my third has seemingly just materialised in a matter of a few months. It's pretty different, and this time there's much more of a conceptual angle to the whole thing - watch this space for more information on that as time goes on.
Enough on that, though. Let's resist the temptation to spend the whole of May gazing ahead, and let's instead take a look at what's been going on in Will World during the first half of 2023.
Avid followers of this blog (lol) will remember the release of Robin Torbitt's Journey Songs Pt.2 back in January. I had the pleasure of recording and producing the project, immortalising Robin's earnest folk tunes with a transparent, naturalistic approach. If you haven't heard these two EPs yet, you'd be doing yourself a great favour to go and immerse yourself in their world immediately, if not sooner.
February and March then saw the rollout of some new music from yours truly! I was finally able to release my musical contribution to last year's wonderful Making Moves project performed at York Theatre Royal, and so out came my latest EP, 1510. It's a dense and eclectic project, blending the intricate textures of Mazes with the more urgent, action-oriented moods explored in some of my soundtrack work. Lead single Chop bashes an insistent piano up against swirling post-punk guitar psychedelia, while Isolator features what will hopefully be the only synth solo to ever make it onto one of my releases.
The end of April was highlighted by the long-awaited album release from fellow York students and all-round good boys Astrology for Men. While I can't take credit for this album's surreal lyrics nor its many crushing instrumental breakdowns, I can at least rest easy knowing that I played bass guitar on its opener, and performed some world-ending synth acrobatics right at the very end. I also contributed a fairly prominent spoken word passage to the project, but unfortunately you'll have to listen to the whole thing in order to find out where.
The very last thing I'd like to highlight is a series of ongoing collaborations with the eclectic pop mega-project, The Confederation. Every track from this group lives a life of its own, and utterly rejects genre conventions - don't be surprised to find head-banging hard-rock rubbing shoulders with glittery disco as you browse their discography. I've been lucky enough to produce three of their tracks so far, two of which are currently out in the world right now! Glimpse is a silky-smooth slice of nocturnal dance-pop recalling Madonna's glory days, while Gasoline is quite simply a rager, featuring none other than Aerosmith collaborator (no, really) Paul Santo on guitar. I'd highly suggest you go and check these out; it's some of my favourite production work I've done so far. (Plus, the upcoming third track is arguably the weirdest and wonderful-est of them all!)
I'll leave you with that overlong summary to assure you that I have indeed been keeping busy this year. But remember - it's still only May! The best of the year lies ahead…
Will x