For years, well decades really, I’ve occasionally spent time in metaphorically darkened rooms trying to come up with curious pieces of music. The pieces have invariably remained unfinished (partly because, with the almost unlimited opportunities provided by contemporary music tech, believing something to be finished is all but impossible). And, along with never finishing a piece, I’ve never let one leave the darkened room and be heard. My audible music has, up until now, always been heard contributing to other people’s songs.

Earlier this month though I decided to change all that and not only challenge myself to come come up with a “finished” piece every month, but to share it. So here is last month’s effort. It’s called, perhaps not surprisingly, October. You can play it below or find it on my Soundcloud page here.

For those who are interested in such things, the track was created, recorded and mixed in Pro Tools and I’ve illustrated the Pro Tools mix screen alongside. There’s five mono tracks for fretless bass guitars, one mono track for double bass, stereo tracks for high and low cellos and pianos, and one stereo track for the programmed drums. There’s also three stereo auxiliary inputs that bus in three different reverbs. The whole piece was recorded to a click track to keep everything in sync and enable elements to be looped.