hymenoptera by Simon Aulman

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yes running out of words that start "hym-" so this might be the last of this little series of albums. This one is more of the same - very simple short quiet very-lofi stuff made quickly on the floor here with my battery-powered keyboard and nice mic - don't be alarmed/misled by the first track (guitar), it's an outlier - everything else is """"electronic"""".

Each of my "hym-" albums inadvertently has a quirk about it - something I didn't notice while I was making it/them, but only noticed afterwards. E.g. the first album ("hymen") had an inordinately large number of backwards-going tracks. And this album, I now notice, is extra-heavy on the echo. Ah well - maybe that's okay - at least it might make it one of the more rhythmic ones. Kind of.

Too early to know how i feel about this album - but I think it's the most """"professional"""" sounding one - it does actually sound like it was made by someone who could get away with calling himself a musician - not just that weird drunken ranty prolific bloke with 50 manual typewriters who used to do a fanzine 35 years ago.

Whether """"professional"""" is a good thing or not - I don't know. It's a loaded word, of course, and I should be rude about it. But I'm not. And right now, if I have to have an opinion, I think this is the best of the "hym-" albums - yay going out with a bang.

Must admit there are moments listening to this album when I was actually a bit puzzled why I haven't got any fans and why none of your cool Wire-reading friends have ever heard of me. Then of course I remembered - failure to network. Genuinely I do not begrudge the famous their fame - especially now that "famous" pretty much means "anyone with more than ten sales per album". That's only seven more than me.

Networking is a lot harder than making music - and I am just too lazy to do the hard work. My previous girlfriend once asked me why I make so many albums and why, whenever I do physical copies, it's only in ltd eds of about 3 copies - why not do one album per year and do 1000 vinyl copies of it etc etc and go down that route ?

Well apart from the obvious thing that sales would stall while I still had 997 copies under my bed, I pointed out to her that I would no longer be a musician (ie someone who makes music most days) and instead I'd just be a clerk in the postage dept - spending 3 days per year making music, and 362 days per year putting LPs in brown wrapping paper and toddling down to the post office - and that's not counting the days you have to spend networking, telling people whose music you hate how brilliant it is and them telling you how brilliant yours is even if they still haven't got a clue who you are.

(recorded october 2021, cover/art/blah by me)
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