Morality EP Update!

Hey everyone! 😁

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen I made a small announcement recently regarding my 2013 'Morality' and 'Immorality' EPs. I've decided to remove the original releases from my bandcamp discography and replace it with a singular "streamlined" Morality EP, which features a small selection of tracks from each of the original releases compiled as one EP. 

In this blog post, I want to talk about what this EP means to me six years down the line and explain why I've decided to do this...

So, if you're familiar with the original releases, you'll notice that there's now quite a few of the tracks in this condensed edition.

Here's the new track list ↓

Morality

1. The Flame
2. Sense Of Morality
3. Floating Through Space**
4. It's All Happening Over Here
5. Fire Dance**
6. You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself*
7. A Closed Door

* = Originally a hidden bonus track
** = Interlude Track

Erm... so it's quite different from the original release 😲
But bare with me, I'll explain why I feel this is a much needed improvement, starting with a little back story behind the EPs.

But firstly, it's important to note that none of these tracks have been edited or remastered in any way. Each track is taken directly from the original release. So, if you downloaded 'Morality' and/or 'Immorality' in their original forms, there is probably no need for you to download this edition... but feel free to do so, if you wish :-)

I always said that 'Morality' and 'Immorality' were connected (hence using the same image flipped as the artwork), but I released them separately (with just a few months between the releases) mainly because of stylistic differences in terms of musical genres that I was tackling on each EP. It's the lyrical themes of "morality" that would bring the EPs together.

When writing songs for 'Morality', I was heavily influenced by electronic music with a slightly darker edge to it. Bands like Depeche Mode and The Knife provided a lot of inspiration for me (and still do, of course!). Whereas, writing 'Immorality', I'd just been introduced to Tori Amos around this time and this really drove me to strip everything back and attempt to write songs that hold nothing back emotionally. It's no secret that Tori's music has changed my life and there's even a little nod to her on 'It's All Happening Over Here' 💖

The songs on 'Morality' explored this theme in a much broader sense, tackling the concept from various situations and perspectives. 'Immorality, on the other hand, is much more personal. The EP was largely about a woman who's immoral, toxic behaviour was causing an extreme amount of upset and tension for myself and, more importantly, those I care about. We were eventually left with no choice but to cut ties with them, in order to reach a place of happiness again. 'Immorality' was composed as a requiem for the person they had once been and a "So long! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" to the person they had become.

So why have you changed it now, Josh?

I've decided to make this change and remove tracks, six years on, for two reasons.
The first of these being that I feel some of the songs just weren't able to reach their full potential. 

There was the was a lot of experimentation of these EPs and, looking back, I feel like there were definitely occasions in which I got carried away with my ideas. I still feel like a lot of the ideas I played around with were great in theory but, in practice, I wasn't able to create the vision of them I had in my head. Having said this, some of the ideas I had on these songs are concepts I'd definitely like to re-attempt and revisit in the future.

The 'Morality' and 'Immorality' EPs were the first projects I released that were intended to be heard as a collection of songs, and I just don't feel comfortable anymore with them having such a large quantity of unrealised experimentation. I removed 'Era' (a compilation of early songs) a while ago for a similar reason. I was still finding my voice with lots of trial and error and, as much as I'm a believer in "don't be embarrassed by your past", I don't want these kinds of songs to be representative of my music. 

Maybe I'll re-release these old songs one day in the future, who knows? But for now, I love that they're something special I've been able to share only with a small group of beautiful people who've been supporting what I do from the very beginning 💝  

 

The second reason I've revised the EP applies more-so to the original 'Immorality' EP in that it was just far too angsty! As mentioned earlier, it was largely about someone who was causing a lot of negativity and you can hear it was written from a dark place. There is absolutely nothing wrong using these kinds of events as inspiration for your creativity because, trust me, it's very cathartic... but the original way I did this was just too intense and didn't portray the kind of resolution I would want for the regret. 

I was too focused on my feelings of being hurt and betrayed when writing the songs for this side of the record, and looking back, it sounded like I'd splattered paint repeatedly over a blank canvas, but that's not the image I envisioned the record representing.

I've always wanted to write music that's relatable and can help people through various situations they're going through (happy or sad), but I feel like the original 'Immorality' release was made by a boy who was so angry and upset, but didn't know how to contain his emotions. Whereas, I feel like, condensing and combining the two EPs together, ending it with 'A Closed Door' and removing the unnecessary songs represents a man who's learned to walk away from the toxicity. That's I did in the situation the record inspired and I wanted the record to represent that too.

I hope that by listening to the EP with this newly revised track list, you can hear exactly what I'm talking about 😇

And what's happening next?

I promise that there is new music coming soon! I'm currently writing a bunch of new stuff that I'm sooo excited about and I can't explain how frustrating it is that I'm unable to record them at the moment. I'm having a lot of trouble with my gear at the moment and it's looking like I'll have to invest in a lot of new equipment in order to record the new songs, which is very stressful, but I'll discuss that further another time. 

I have something planned for in the meantime though, don't worry 😏

Thank you so much for reading this blog! I hope you enjoy this revised edition of Morality just as much as I do! My songs are honestly like my babies and I'm so much happier with how it sounds now! 😁

Please check it out and all my other music on Bandcamp if you haven't already done so!
Talk to you all soon!
Josh 😎