I’ve been a bit hesitant to blog in the New Year this January.

Perhaps I’m afraid if I tell you all the things I have planned, I will be obliged to do them, but then I won’t be able to get through them all and it will be Vox Artis all over again…

Maybe it’s because I’m afraid my ideas aren’t really worth pursuing.

It could be the fear that I’m not good enough at what I do for me to do these ideas justice.

There is also a feeling of isolation. Will it just be me fiddling around with these projects and then having no one to share them with?

All that said, I do need to talk about my aims for the year. I am working on another inspiration board, but it’s a bit empty at present, so I’ll keep adding things as I go. For now, I will list for you this year’s projects!

The big idea this year is to work on new material for the first few months.

Things like The Acoustic Cake Project were designed to help me get my old songs out of my system and get them heard by someone, somewhere. This year I want to focus on material that I’ve written in the last year (or less!) and really take my time on production quality and execution of concept.

List of my projects for the first part of the year:

Suburban Explorer

A 4-track EP about having adventures within a 15 minute walk of your home… And also things like secret feelings and mental health. A very “curled up on the sofa under a blanket with a cup of tea and some YouTube videos” sort of release. Close to home, close to one’s heart, exploring within and without.

Untitled Spring-Themed EP

I have a few recent, unfinished light-electronic tracks to complete. They are much more focused on production and experimentation with arrangement, much like Vox Artis, but with a gentler feel all round. The concept is ‘spring’ because that’s my favourite season, when I’m at my most relaxed and happy.

New Glitter Punch Album

As you know, we are working on our second full-length album. We still have a lot of ideas left to play around with and plenty of strong songs to complete. There isn’t much of an overarching theme, just “stuff we think is totally badass”.

New Worship Music

I’ve taken to writing some new songs for church. The first will be something called a ‘Gloria’, a song sung traditionally in Anglican services with themes of angels heralding the birth of Jesus and some other Trinitarian stuff. It can be difficult keeping it fresh as you need to include certain lyrics, but I think I’ve done reasonably well. I have a few others up my sleeve. It’ll be interesting bringing something new to the table.

Polymuse

Avant-garde process-based music with a similar theme to Suburban Explorer in that I will be sourcing sounds from within the home and local area. It will be a whimsical sort of sonic journey with a tip of the hat to my Music Practice degree. I’ll be sure to make it nice and listenable, though, so you don’t have to suffer through my art!

And now for my plans for the later part of the year…

Tea Break

This will be The Acoustic Cake Project in full album for as opposed to just ripping the audio from my one-take videos. There will be 11 tracks, 10 old, tried and tested songs, and one new track called Tea Break. The idea is to sit down with a cup of tea and a slice of CarylCake while enjoying my sweet acoustic sounds. I’ll be taking my time over this one to make it the absolute best quality I can muster.

CarylCake and Friends (or some other equally cheesy title…)

I want to do a load of cover versions of songs written by my friends. I have a great big list of people I want to cover. This will be a mostly YouTube-based project made up of one-take videos, produced videos, or still images with the track playing. It will be an ongoing thing with tracks added to a free Bandcamp album as I make them, probably lasting into 2014 if I enjoy doing it.

Digital Delight

The concept album which is yet to exist… I made a big deal about this one in 2011, but haven’t done that much with it since. I want to have videos to accompany most of the songs, perhaps some short-form clips as well as full-length higher level production music videos.

J-Pop Covers

As you should know by now, I’m obsessed with Japanese girl group, Perfume. My Spring of Life cover went down amazingly well, so I’d like to have a stab at a few more of their songs. I just love singing in Japanese! I’d also like to cover Utada Hikaru, Ikimono Gakari and JASMINE among others.

If I manage to get through all that, I will give myself a very well-deserved pat on the back!

In fact, if I manage a third of what’s on that list I’ll be sharing LaCroix‘s all round!

So, I hope you will stick around with me on this particular journey. It’s going to be very challenging, but oh so much fun.

Wish me luck!