In the last few months I have been working on some re-imagined versions of songs that my friends have written. Some Of My Friends' Songs seemed like an apt title for the project and today sees the release of the first three track EP to be birthed from this idea.

It's available for free here.

The project started when myself and David Moyes from The Scottish Enlightenment decided it would be a good idea to record a version of a song by our friend Craig Rennie for his thirtieth birthday. Knowing the recording wouldn't be on a 'proper' release was remarkably freeing and created a perfect opportunity to try out ideas that had been bubbling under the surface for a while. Combined with the fact that both the writer of the source material and the collaborator were close friends made the experience very enjoyable and one that I was determined to attempt again.

Two more songs followed, taken from the growing list of eclectic compositions my friends were creating. Pascal, by The Scottish Enlightenment provided the opportunity to use a deck of cards as a rhythm section and see what an analogue synth bass line and an accordion played the wrong way sound like together.
I used the song January Light by Kilmory Day Trip (who I'd met when recording their EP a few months earlier) as another chance to collaborate, on this occasion with longtime friend Alastair MacGregor. Time signature changes, a battered Juno and the sound of suitcases being slammed shut seemed to take the piece suitably off the beaten track.

Accompanying the EP is a beautifully written and hilarious short essay on the pitfalls of attempting 'cover versions'. Written by Craig Rennie, the man whose thirtieth birthday inspired the project, the essay is included with the download. It can be viewed on its own here.

I see these three songs as the first-fruits of an ongoing project I hope to continue over the following months and years, as and when time and inspiration leads. Presenting these songs as surprise gifts to their respective authors was a great joy. I hope you also enjoy listening.

Dan

Had an ace weekend at the Big Tent Festival. Made me proud to be from Fife. Highlights include King Creosote's jumper, Brazil! Brazil!'s backflips on stage, Tunng's musical statues, a seminar on the future of forestry in Scotland and the film The Yes Men Fix the World. Superb.

The first of our world tours. We even got a caravan with grapes and stuff. Honestly though, we had a totally ace time. Very hospitable people, fun gigs in a stunning setting.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

http://bit.ly/d78XRP

http://eepurl.com/ksJL

http://sixtyseconds.bandcamp.com/track/petit-go-ve-patients-singing-at-field-...

A few days ago I came back from a trip to Haiti. I was part of a team taking out medical supplies to a hospital on the island of La Gonave as well as a recently established field hospital in Petit-Goâve, near the earthquake’s epicentre. The charity we were going on behalf of are called Lemon Aid and they had worked hard to collect and pay for about 1000 kg of medical supplies including a large amount of tetanus vaccinations. They have had a relationship with the hospital for a couple of years now and responded quickly after the earthquake, sending out a similar team prior to this trip and preparing for a third to leave in a few days time.

Since arriving home I have been asked numerous times what it’s like in Haiti right now. I can only say that I have seen and experienced very, very little of the full scale of what has happened there. I am a healthy, wealthy, well fed and comfortable man who has never lost a family member to anything other than old age. It’s hard, therefore, for me and for many of us to be able to fully empathise with the plight of the Haitian people. However, that doesn’t give us an excuse not to act. As we drove through Port-au-Prince at 6 am one morning, I was struck by the rows and rows of people sleeping on the streets, fearful of the concrete buildings that killed so many. As the rainy season starts next month, this is likely to bring a whole host of sanitation and general health issues. And whilst many have managed to create makeshift shelters, these are unlikely to withstand the hurricanes that so often sweep the island.

What really impacted me is the sheer scale of the situation. A whole city lies in ruins with over a million people homeless and around two million people needing food and water.  The current media attention and concentration of humanitarian aid is to be fully applauded. Many, many people are working very hard. However, what may end up being the real challenge is continuing this support for the next five to ten years. After the tsunami of 2004 some governments ending up giving only 50% of the amount they had pledged. This isn’t good enough. Haiti’s already fragile economy has suffered a devastating blow with many of the middle class business owners falling the furthest and essentially losing their life savings as they saw their houses collapse. This will make it even harder for Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas to rebuild, and long-term international aid must be made available long after the news crews have left. We don’t want to see thousands upon thousands of Haitians living in refugee camps for years to come.

I passed a school where 4000 children had died in a single minute. 2995 people lost their lives in the September 11th attacks and the ramifications of that event are still felt today, almost ten years on. Let it be the same with Haiti, let us not forget this in the years to follow.

Some useful information:

http://www.lemonaid.org.uk/

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/haiti-earthquake-whos-given-what/

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/usersubmissions/haiti/schwartzman/

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc108?OpenForm&emid=EQ-2010-000009-HTI&rc=2

Thanks for a great Christmas.

It’s a new year and time to start writing again.

My January Spotify playlist: Listening January

Christmas is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It’s the sacred and the profane. It’s a time to be together and a time to be lonely. It’s lavish, humbling, inconvenient, inspiring and a bunch of other words from the thesaurus all at once. It’s an empty seat at a table that was once full, and a new face in a family meeting for another year as if it was the first time.

It starts off with a plot – a plot some say you couldn’t make up. Others disagree. There’s a power-crazed king with mass murder in mind, a pregnant virgin, singing shepherds and wise men winding a cross-country path in the pull of an interstellar sat nav system. Sometimes it ends with boxes under a tree. Sometimes it ends kind of like it started, minus the murder but with most of the magic.

There’s a lot to say about Christmas, perhaps even more to sing about it. On The Fat Man and Baby Boy, that’s exactly what Dan Lyth does. Maybe This Baby Could Save us All! begins with a tale of a trip to the garden centre that turns sour courtesy of Aunty Carol’s steely-minded determination to find a tree deserving of a place in the front window. With brawling in Primark, exotic animals taking centre stage in the Nativity and online orders nowhere to be seen, is it conceivable that the chaos could be brought to order by an oft-overlooked infant?

If the zoological authenticity of the school play troubles you little, you might find resonance in the tragic tale of an honest soul whose Christmas gift budget turns out to be three times less than that of his significant other. She Spent Thirty weighs up financial outgoings and internal yearnings – raising more questions than it answers over a snappy beat that might just inspire you to flee congested shopping centres with invigorating abandon.

There are tales of yore on offer too. Dan awakens his inner Etruscan with a smattering of Latin in The Boar’s Head Carol, praise and panic intermingle in Mary, I Was Wrong as the holy family lose their way and engage in some self examination en route to Bethlehem, and old favourite Joy To The World skips along to a new tempo that reanimates a beating heart too often concealed beneath the robes of wide-mouthed choristers.

That’s Christmas past and Christmas present covered – but what of the future? Futuristic Chrismalistic takes us underground as our offspring dissect tales of yesteryear’s festivities by dull lamp light. With 300 years worth of computer data gone, all that remains is myths of indoor foliage, odd foodstuffs, an obese philanthropist and a mysterious infant. Will Bing Crosby’s widescreen snowscape melt into the shadows? Is there a glinting scrap of tinsel buried beneath the grime? And was the forgotten historical custom in question ever really about the external anyway?

Dan’s take on Christmas spans centuries, revels in intricacies, gawps at grandiosity and excavates the everyday with a wide-eyed wisdom that money could never buy. Like the moment you shake off your concerns over a festive flu and collapse wholeheartedly into a thick blanket of snow, listening to The Fat Man and Baby Boy is a surprising, refreshing and satisfying sensation that will linger long in the memory. 

This is Christmas in all its colours, and whether your seasonal spectrum explodes with reds and greens or takes on a more muted palette, music this lovingly created will always be a gift.

Merry Christmas!

To buy the album visit http://music.danlyth.com