DYSSIDIA ALBUM RECORDING & SHOWS, CLIFF RACER EP RECORDING, FREEDOM OF FEAR PRO SHOT LIVE SET

Since my last update, I recorded the drum tracks for the new Dyssidia album which is very exciting! (see pic below). Plenty of videos to come. We did this at Against the Grain Studio with our long-time sound engineer and good mate Andy Kite. We really pushed ourselves with the song writing on this album, taking a long time to refine the songs, with the result being some of our most complex (but still emotive) material to date. The other guys will be recording their parts over the next few months, but rather than wait until the album is out to play shows, we decided to organise an Adelaide and Melbourne show in May with our Melbourne mates Wallet Inspector (crazy instrumental tech metal) and our Adelaide mates Sines (alternative/progressive rock/metal).

A few weeks after recording the Dyssidia album, my funk rock/alternative rock band Cliff Racer went into Against the Grain Studio to record our second EP. We recorded the drums and bass live in the studio with guitars and vocals to be recorded later. Plenty of footage to come later. Check out our first EP here.

Finally, Freedom of Fear just released the professionally mixed and filmed set from the Carpathia album launch where we played the entire album in full. There’s a stick drop in the first song so you know it’s not edited!

IVANYI & FREEDOM OF FEAR TOURS! MY DYSSIDIA BUDDY NEIL JOINS CLIFF RACER!

Ivanyi (James Norbert Ivanyi) is finally back for a short east coast run in December! I haven’t played live (or at all since they are in Sydney and I’m in Adelaide) with James and bass player Liam Horgan since 2019 so it’s an exciting prospect to be back playing James’ extremely difficult instrumental tunes live again! We’ll be playing two tracks from one of the 3 albums he has put out in the last couple of years called Omen Faustum which are 2 of the most difficult pieces of music I’ve ever had to learn. Check out the playthrough I did for one of these tracks below. Joining us on this tour is Stephen Taranto who is an absolutely mind blowing guitarist also out of Sydney.

Freedom of Fear are finally releasing their new album next month featuring the legendary Hannes Grossman on drums! It’s a pretty cool feeling to be playing Hannes’ parts live since he has been such an influential drummer playing in bands like Necrophagist and Obscura. The first single and video which I was in was released a couple of weeks ago. We’ll be touring in late Nov/early Dec in support of the new album! Looking forward to lots of blast beats.

Finally, following the departure of our previous bass player, Neil from my main band Dyssidia has joined my funk rock/alt rock band Cliff Racer! Neil is one of my favourite songwriters, so it’s exciting to have him on board writing new songs with Byron and myself. Our first show with Neil will be at The Exeter on the 28th of October.

Songwriting/rehearsing for the new Dyssidia album is nearing completion which is exciting! Aiming to record the drums in January at this stage.

Cheers!

LONG OVERDUE UPDATE - HADAL MAW/FREEDOM OF FEAR/CLIFF RACER/DYSSIDIA

It’s been a while since I’ve update this ‘blog’ but I’ve been super busy with music as well as my non-musical day job. Hadal Maw successfully completed our Australian tour in April/May without any covid related issues! We played in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, as well as a special show in my hometown of Adelaide as part of the massive New Dead Fest alongside heavyweights such as Psycroptic, Abremalin, Lagerstein and Lo! Freedom of Fear were also supposed to play this fest but had to pull out as a member had Covid at the time. Here’s some live Hadal footage from a couple of the shows this year:

Freedom of Fear also slotted in a show in Brisbane in the midst of the Hadal tour:

Both Hadal Maw and Freedom of Fear recently played the amazing Blacken Open Air Festival in the dead centre of Australia (Ross River Resort about an hour out of Alice Springs). Anyone that went will tell you that this is one of the most unique and special festivals they ever attended. It was awesome to see Revocation from the US play an absolutely killer set, as well as getting to meet their drummer Ash Pearson who is a lovely dude. Another highlight was seeing the GOAT Dave Haley slay 3 sets with Psycroptic, Ruins and Abremalin. I’ve been getting my mind blown by Dave for about 15 years now and he certainly isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

Hadal Maw also recently released our cover of ‘Scourge of Iron’ by Cannibal Corpse which we played on our recent tour as well as at Blacken Open Air. This was kind of a challenging song to play as the kicks are at an awkward slow/mid tempo. It’s a hell of a lot of fun to play live though. We definitely put our weird spin on this, so there’s some different stuff going on compared to the original, but hopefully we still did it justice.

Dyssidia just played with one of my favourite bands Be’lakor at Lion Arts in Adelaide which was a lot of fun! We have mainly been focussing on the songwriting and demoing process for our new album which will be out by the middle of next year. Hopefully we’ll get a tour going in the next 6 months as well.

Finally, my funk rock band Cliff Racer that we started in early 2021 is back! We played two shows at the Exeter and the Crown and Anchor in the last month or so, plus we released our debut EP on the 1st of August! Stream it wherever. I do lead vocals on the 1st and last track on the EP as well as backing vocals on the other track. Here’s the other track!

Upcoming shows:

Freedom of Fear tonight at the UniBar

Hadal Maw - Ballarat on October 7, Melbourne on October 8

Tour dates are currently being finalised for James Norbert Ivanyi and Freedom of Fear (separate tours) for later in the year.

HADAL MAW DRUM PLAYTHROUGH, MELBOURNE SHOWS WITH HADAL & FREEDOM OF FEAR

We had a bunch of great footage left over from the video shoot for the Hadal Maw track ‘Vile Veneration’ (see previous post), so we decided to put together a drum playthrough. As the original intention wasn’t to film a drum playthrough, there’s a few parts where the drums or cymbals I’m hitting don’t exactly line up with the recording, but hey, who cares eh? Filmed and edited by the very talented Ian Ritter.

The new Hadal Maw EP came out on NYE (pick up a vinyl, CD, digital copy or merch from www.blighttownrecords.com or https://hadalmaw.bandcamp.com/) and we will be launching it at The Workers Club in Melbourne on the 4th of February. This will be my first interstate show since the start of the epidemic so I’m excited! More shows to come in April including the massive New Dead Fest in Adelaide.

The night after (5th of Feb) I’ll be playing at the Evelyn with Freedom of Fear (FoF) who I have played a couple of shows with now including one in Alice Springs a few months ago. I also filmed two very epic music videos with FoF at the end of 2021 which will be released in the coming months to promote their new album.

On the Dyssidia front, we were lucky to play a show at The Gov in Adelaide in early January to 300 people supporting the always awesome Twelve Foot Ninja. Given capacities are reduced to 25% in Adelaide, this was quite favourable that we were able to play this show to so many people (The Gov was able to have 150 inside and 150 outside which was 25% for both). Check out a live drum cam from the show below. We also started demoing tracks for our next album in December which we’re very excited about. Check out some footage of the drum demo recording below as well.

Cheers and stay safe!

CZARCIE KOPYTO PEDALS & PRECISION KICKS TRIGGERS ENDORSEMENT, NEW HADAL MAW SINGLE & EP

After the cancellation of the Hadal Maw tour in August, the Freedom of Fear tour in September, and the Dyssidia/Alarum tour in October due to Covid, it’s nice to have some good news! I am very proud to now be endorsing Czarcie Kopyto pedals from Poland and Precision Kicks triggers from Melbourne. I announced this on my socials a couple of months ago, but I’m finally getting around to posting it here.

Here’s what I had to say about joining the CK team:

“I could not be happier with my new Czarcie Kopyto pedals - I was flying on these pedals straight out of the box with no adjustments! I'm not really much of a drum gear guy, but the engineering of these pedals is absolutely phenomenal. Everything is so easy to adjust and I can tell that these pedals will last pretty much forever. Now that I have my Czarcie's, nothing is holding me back now.”

I’m also loving the Precision Kicks triggers which sit underneath the pedals and trigger the kick drum sample when the footboard connects with the trigger head. Double triggers and misfires are now a thing of the past!

Hadal Maw have also recently released the first single and video from our EP which will be released on New Years Eve. After being a fan of Hadal Maw since their inception in 2012, it’s a pretty cool feeling to hear my drums on their music!