I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest

Photo by The Dark Outside

A new tape.

RENDLESHAM is an electronic instrumental album soundtracking arguably Britain’s most remarkable UFO events. Side 1 soundtracks the bizarre Christmas/Boxing Day case (which includes Sergeant Jim Penniston encountering and receiving a binary code from a “craft of unknown origin”), and Side 2 brings to life the curious events witnessed by Lt. Colonel Charles Halt and his team in the forest in the early hours of 28th December 1980, incorporating original micro-cassette recordings (‘The Halt Tape’) captured at the time. The album ends with ‘Aftermath’ (video below), featuring the voice of Attorney Patrick Frascogna speaking at a 2011 U.S. court hearing attempting to gain access to Penniston & colleague John Burroughs medical records (both airmen suffered life-threatening ailments after coming into contact with the “craft” in 1980).

The music on the album is intentionally redolent of British underground electronic music at the time of the Rendlesham Forest incident. For best results this album should be listened to in the dark with eyes closed. You will enter the forest..

Order here from 6pm:

https://thedarkoutside.bandcamp.com/merch/a-farewell-to-hexes-rendlesham

UPDATE: I’m delighted to say the ‘Rendlesham’ tape sold out. 80 copies in less than an hour. Thanks to everyone who bought it. I’ll hopefully get a bigger release of this album so more people can hear it – I’m very proud of it.

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In My Time Of Dying

WotD

I’m pleased to report I have a new EP out soon with Irish/French/New York ‘Broken beat’ combo Warriors Of The Dystotheque. The I Know You’ll Never Die EP will be released by CWB.ie / Dublin’s Reckless Records on 28^th October.

The record is already getting good airplay on 6Music, BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Foyle and RTE2.

Here’s the Le Galaxie remix of the title track.

When someone attacks your imagination

Invaderband ‘Attack Of The Pod People’ – 3 track single OUT NOW!

Digital download:
Bandcamp
Amazon
iTunes
Google Play

Limited Edition CD available via https://adamleonard.bandcamp.com/merch

Official website: http://invaderband.com/
Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/invaderbandmusic

After being played by Steve Lamacq a couple of times, the single has been put on the BBC 6 Music Recommends Playlist. Woah!

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‘Last Night I Dreamt Of Hibrihteselle’ by Richard Moult

Composer, painter and poet Richard Moult‘s new solo album Last Night I Dreamt Of Hibrihteselle, a Loegrian dream sequence, can now be purchased from Delphine Dora’s exquisite label Wild Silence. The album comprises of song settings to poems by Mary Webb, Ivor Gurney and Gladys Mary Coles, and includes guest appearances from members of United Bible Studies, as well as artists such as Delphine Dora, Adam Leonard, Amanda Feery and Sophie Cooper.

 

I am honoured to sing on this album. It has been an immense labour of love for Richard, a friend and true artist, and I believe the finished album to be a triumph.

Download or buy the release via the Wild Silence bandcamp page:
https://wildsilencelabel.bandcamp.com/album/last-night-i-dreamt-of-hibrihteselle

 

Keeps out invaders who come but still can’t control the violent side

Photograph: Lisa Byrne

My plan is for 2015 to be the year Invaderband spreads its wings. The following things should become reality this year: Releases, local(ish) Irish gigs as usual but also UK dates (I know, great!), some in my birthplace and spiritual flat-capped home of Manchester. Current plans for UK are early August, but a new website is being developed right now (invaderband.com) so keep your eye on that and you will be able to sign up to a mailing list to stay bang up-to-date, and get one of our super-shiny new recordings for doing so – taken from sessions at the end of 2014. There are lots of plans (videos, festivals, blah & blah) and I am very excited because I believe these new recordings to be the best thing I have ever been involved with musically.

As for the solo stuff, the Octopus project will end in a couple of weeks with Octopus Part 8 released on – gosh you’re clever – the 8th March. I believe I have saved some of the best music until last there as well, with the usual mix of covers (Beatles again this time!), previously unreleased songs/recordings and a great BBC session track of a ‘Nature Recordings’ song, so it kind of brings it up to date with my solo releases too. I only realised recently – this was genuinely an accident – that the 8th song on the 8th release is ‘The Eighth Tower’. There are 8 Invaderband recordings, I have 8 songs written for my new solo album and I live at No. 8 on my street, so that mystical digit is clearly relevant to me in a universal sense. Richard Dawkins would say that it was coincidence & random, but he’s a bit of a bore. The lovely art for Octopus 8 is here, kindly created by my friend and brother-in-song, Chris McConaghy:

Free download for 1 month, then I think I will bundle up all 8 releases into 1 and sell it for £20 or something extremely reasonable indeed for 64 songs. I might even press up some physical copies with extra songs if there is a demand for that, but I don’t want to fall into the double pack with a photograph extra track and a tacky badge trap, which there is a real danger of. Maybe I’ll just make 8 and put them on eBay.

That’s all I can think of for now. MASSIVE thanks to BUYERS of the Octopus releases which are always available for free originally. I know who you are and I’ll hug & kiss you all if we ever meet…

Bye for now!
+A x

I Think Images Are Worth Repeating

21st March 2014

10th April 2014

City Of Culture ‘Resonate’ award

I’m rather surprised to report that the song ‘My Love’ has been voted the best track in the UK City Of Culture 2013 (Derry~Londonderry) ‘Resonate’ competition, organised by The Nerve Centre in association with Blast Furnace, funded by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to capture the musical talent, energy and spirit of Derry during the UK City of Culture 2013 (to quote the blurb!).

For the full story, and some quotes attributed to me which I never said(!), read this article from The Derry Journal.

Here’s me getting one of those cool oversized cheques as a prize. I also get to re-record the track in a proper studio, which will then be released on the ‘Resonate Album Of The Year’. All good. And thanks to the judges. You’re all extremely good looking and have great taste.

Joe Carlin (Nerve Centre), Me, Ruairi O’Kane (National Lottery).

And here’s me with the lady who inspired the song, my love and my wife Blathnaid Leonard. Warm like the rain and I’m glad.

Photographs by Lorcan Doherty.

A 4-track EP containing the track ‘My Love’ is available HERE.

The Spectre

Here’s a really beautiful video for Pulco’s ‘The Spectre’ by Japanese artist and illustrator Hideyuki Katsumata. The intro to this track features a garage door solo by yours truly.

“The Spectre” is one of those songs which leaves you feeling completely satisfied, yet robbed. You want it to go on for at least another measure, and then another. If Donovan, Robyn Hitchcock, Lloyd Cole, Pulco, Syd Barrett, and Colin Newman had a love child, it would be named “The Spectre” – thebomberjacket.com

New film: Live @ Cecil Sharp House, London.

Cecil Sharp House, North London.

In September 2010 myself and my best friend Gareth Davies took a trip to London to play at the ‘Ghosts From The Basement’ all-day event organised by Weekend Beatnik, Rif Mountain & The English Folk Dance and Song Society. This was a celebration of cult folk record label The Village Thing which was founded in 1970, 40 years previously. Artists I am a big fan of were playing, for example Wizz Jones, Dave Evans and Mark Fry, so I was delighted to be able to do this.

Apparently these films have been online for about a year, but I have only just found out about them thanks to Steven Collins of The Owl Service.

So, here’s me with Gareth and Steven playing Lillian, I Love You:

And I sing on the second song here (Willy O’Winsbury), with my buddies The Owl Service. I appear like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn at 5:17.

There must be more film out there (all the songs I did were filmed) but this is all I can see so far.

Tiny Colour Movies

Invaderband live 26/5/13 (courtesy of Jim Cunningham).