"paper ocean (or the complicated gestation of a sub-indie album)"

"paper ocean (or the complicated gestation of a sub-indie album)" by daniel prendiville

Let Daniel take up the story...

"I had this mad notion", he says, "to keep a journal of the process surrounding the recording of 'Hand Actor Part'. I'd done something similar while recording 'Tree Ring Circus' and had used the Reincheque Recordings yahoogroup as a vehicle. The intention had been to keep my supporters informed (and interested) in the album as it was coming together. To that end, I would do a weekly posting to the group on progress and other incidental items. However, I found the weekly posting to be a problem, as it was easy to forget what to report and to forget to do a posting at all.

"So, when planning to journal 'Hand Actor Part', I decided to keep a daily log of what I'd done and then do a posting of the daily logs once a week (or so). I found the discipline of writing daily very useful and it helped me keep track of how the album was progressing, never mind my supporters."

So, when did he decide to publish the posting as an e-book?

"Towards the end of 2005, I thought that it would be a shame if the journal couldn't reach a wider audience. I decided to start editing the journal entries up to that time with a view to publishing them. At my end of the media spectrum, publishing in book format is simply out of the question, so instead I decided to make it available as a downloadable file. Much simpler for all concerned, really."

So what's in the book, then?

"Well, it is principally a log of progress in composing and recording the album. There are lyrics, lots of photographs and random musings on life. For those of a technical bent, there are details of instruments and equipment used. And seemingly endless tales of disaster and malfunction. As the e-book's subtitle suggests, the album had a complicated gestation."

So, what do you mean by a "sub-indie" album?

"You'll have to buy the e-book to find that out..."

Oh, aye...