Top 10 Favourite Albums of 2020

 Hi Everyone!

Hope you're all doing well! 2020 has been a very strange year for every single one of us.

One of the positives to come out of this year that's helped me get through is the really excellent music that has been released throughout. Some artists used lockdown as an oppurtunity to get creative! 

Even I re-arranged and re-recorded an old song of mine which you can stream here (or download here) 😉

Anyway, here is a list of my Top 10 favourite albums of 2020:

10. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger

The debut solo album from Matt of The National. 
Not too disimilar from his work with The National but this appears to take more influence from some of the great singer-songwriters of the late 60's/early 70's (think Bob Dylan, Neil Young, etc).

Standout Tracks: Serpentine Prison, Loved So Little, One More Second

9. Unfollow The Rules by Rufus Wainwright

This is Rufus doing what he does best, writing beautifully crafted songs.
Reminds me stylistically of his 2007 'Release The Stars' album.

Standout Tracks: Peaceful Afternoon, Alone Time, Early Morning Madness 

8. How I'm Feeling Now by Charli XCX

A totally unexpected lockdown album entirely created in just a few weeks!
One of Charli's more experimental (and personal) creations that also features some bangers!

Standout Tracks: I Finally Understand, Visions, Enemy 

The Flame (2020)

Hey everyone,
Hope you're all well and staying safe safe!

I'm sure you don't need me to go into details so... lets just say there's a lot going on in the world right now and the safest place for us to be at the moment is in our homes. Hopefully things will start to look up sooner rather than later but, in the meantime, many of us (myself included) have suddenly found ourselves with a lot of extra time on our hands.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that a chunk of that time hasn't been spent binge-watching Netflix & YouTube whilst getting fat on quarantine snacks, however, I have also been spending time being productive (believe it or not)😉

And, as a result of that time spent, I present to you... The Flame (2020)! 🥳

LISTEN & DOWNLOAD HERE!

This is an arrangement based on my original acoustic version that I've been gradually developing for a while with the intentions of possibly using it for live performance. 

I was 18 when I wrote The Flame and it's been quite a few years since I released it (eek 😬) and I feel like The Flame (2020) is the most mature version of the song. Unfortunately, due to social distancing rules, Poppy couldn't be featured on this version but hopefully one day we'll get to play it together!

It's also worth noting that this arrangement features the extra verse at the end, which I (inexplicably) didn't include in the original acoustic version despite it being my favourite part of the whole song!

The mix of this is track pretty "bare bones" (if that makes sense) and I've mentioned in the past that the reason I haven't been so prolific lately is because I'm kind of limited in terms of recording resources at the moment whilst saving for some new equipment, so I'm taking time out to focus on writing so that I can come back with something I hope you'll truly love!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share this with you! I know a few of you seem to particularly enjoy the original versions of this song and I hope you love this new arrangement too!

Like most of my music, this song is available to download at a no minimum "name your price" (if you want it for free, you can have it for free!) from http://joshstarmer.bandcamp.com or  https://soundcloud.com/joshstarmermusic

If you like what I do, I would really appreciate it if you like and share this song with your friends and family! Your support means the world ❤️
Also, if anybody fancies making a remix or cover of this, please get in touch! I'd love to hear 'em!

Thank you for listening! Now it's time to go back to the drawing board and figure out what I can do next 🤪

Stay home and stay safe 😇

'Songs EP 1' - OUT NOW!!!!!!

'Songs EP 1′ - OUT NOW!!!!!!

Please listen, enjoy, and share with everyone you know. 

The EP is available to download in it’s entirety from BandCamp, no minimum spend.

Please CLICK HERE to read a blog I posted earlier talking about my thoughts, concept and inspiration behind each of the songs on the EP.

Thank you always for your support.

'My Disguise' - OUT NOW!!!

'My Disguise', track two from the upcoming 'Songs EP1' is available to stream on SoundCloud right now!!!

Please check it out, like and share with everyone you know!

'Songs EP1' will be released on BandCamp in the next few of days!

Be sure to keep checking back for updates!!! 

Well.... Sorry for my absence!

Wow!

I know it's a cliché to start off a blog post this way, but it's been quite a while since I updated this blog! I'm really sorry for that!
Just to let you know, there is a reason why I haven't updated this blog in a while (and it's not that I'm lazy!)

Last month, I finally finished my university course! (woo!!!!)
All my classes are done, and my coursework has been submitted, now I've just got to wait for my grades.

If you follow me on other social media, you may have seen that I released a brand new EP last month too!
The EP is called 'Elements' and it was composed as part of my 'Independent Research Project' (more commonly known as a dissertation) and explores the themes of music as symbolism.
The EP is an ambient, instrumental music project, and it's the second ambient music project that I've released.

• You can stream/download the EP and find out more information at http://joshstarmer.bandcamp.com

Here's the beautiful artwork for the EP, shot by my father

I'm currently working on lots of new music that I plan to release very soon!

In regards to this blog, now that I'm done with university, I plan to start writing and updating this blog much more frequently. I've currently got a few ideas for new music-themed posts, as I feel like I haven't done enough talking about music on here yet.

I read a lot of blogs, and watch a lot of vloggers, but I'm still feel like I'm fairly new to the concept of blogging. Some of you may know I've been writing a blog over at http://joshstarmer.tumblr.com/ for a few years now, but I just write that to document the creation of my own music. 

I've got a few ideas of things I want to write about on here in the future, but I'm open to suggestions. Are there any things you'd like to see me discuss on here? Let me know!

Keep checking back for more updates, 

Josh :-)

And if you'd like to follow me on other social media, click here for links to everything I'm on!