Sunday Post

At the beginning of the week I began to roll out a slightly revamped group of oddballs. Nameless nobodies, who bare all in a slightly less obvious way. Where intimate quirks, habits and insecurities replace body-hair, freckles and flesh.

'Enjoys licking stamps'

'Reveals secrets in her sleep'

'In love with infatuation'

'Practices smiling in the bathroom mirror'

More to come from tomorrow over on Instagram... 'till then.

Happy thoughts,

- The Wormling

The Hopeless Aurelian

- The Wormling

Sunday Post

Just between you and me, I was feeling creatively drained this time last week. It wasn't so much that I'd run out of ideas, more that they were being filtered through my shit-tinted point-of-view. So I turned the pressure off and stepped away for a few days. Turned my concentration onto something else. Something that didn't revolve around being completed. 

I played with old recordings, faffed with watercolours and inks. I dipped into T. S. Eliot, I played computer games and watched old comedy. I took an early morning walk and met up with good friends. I escaped... A week later, and I feel a little better about it all. Fresh ears, eyes and all that.

Anyway, next week will be a totally different story, what with my new instrumental track 'The Hopeless Aurelian' coming out tomorrow and a new, more observational/introspective take on my daily doodles starting on Tuesday, things are looking positive once more.

And to top it off, new work on my collaborative project, 'Major Gubbins', has begun!... It's going to be a beautiful mess.

Happy thoughts,


- The Wormling

24-Bit Multimedia Monster

- The Wormling

Sunday Post

Warfare in the London Underground, an indecisive djembe instructor and a whole lotta cassette manipulation found its way into tomorrow's new 'Wou-Wou...' release, '24-Bit Multimedia Monster'.

But it's not the first time my dictaphone snippets have been sprinkled into the mix. In fact the thought of taking a recording of say, bird song from 2011, a drum pattern tapped on a table in 2007, and then mashing it all together with something I'm working on now, is so exciting to me. It feels like magic. 

But it's only over the last few months that I've learnt to take these snippets and play with them properly. Morphing them into instruments and stretching them to make oddball rhythms. And it's with '24-Bit Multimedia Monster' that I share my first example of this sort of creativity with found sounds, however crude.

Have you ever found a sound? Or know where to find a juicy one? If you're not feeling precious over it throw it my way (wouwouandthewormling@gmail.com), I'm always on the look out for 'em. 

Happy thoughts,

- The Wormling

Sunday Post

On top of giving away one of my illustrations and getting played on the radio for the second time! I have also being delving back into my little red book of chance this week.

Behind its mock leather cover lays a composers nightmare: 45 pieces of music, mapped out by the indifferent hand of fate. A plethora of awkward chord progressions, sewn together by breakneck tempos and irregular time signatures are crying out to be realised. And did I mention that 'The Furry Gamble' gets a look in too!

Thanks to modern music making software, everything is achievable, even if it's not pleasant to listen to. Any composition that isn't too physically demanding will feature at least one live instrument, and all the tracks will manipulate found sounds and ambient recordings, which I will use to craft sample based instruments, broadening my audio palette and grounding these strange tracks in some sort of reality... if reality is needed that is. 

So far I've chipped away at the first 9 tracks, which will make up the first 3 EP's. There will be 15 EP's in total, each housing 3 tracks. 

Each EP focuses on a certain number of rules and restrictions. For example the music in the first EP only uses major chords, the music in the second uses only minor, and by the time I get to the last EP everything from the mood to the number of bars and sections will be decided by chance.

The plan is to release one EP a month starting January 2015, but the exact date hasn't been set yet.

Course, this chance malarky doesn't stop at music... but I'll quit now before I get into detail about my little navy blue book of prompts, for another Sunday maybe.

Happy thoughts,


- The Wormling

The Wou-Wou & The Wormling Wednesday Giveaway - Ground Rules

The premise is simple enough. Every Wednesday I'll give you the chance to win one of my original  doodles from my bloated back catalogue. No hidden agendas or costs, just my way of showing my appreciation.

How it works:

At approximately 9:00am GMT I will post a photo via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter advertising which doodle will be up-for-grabs. Gathering you want it, you then have a 12 hour window in which to leave the comment "the early bird catches the wormling". I will allow spelling mistakes, but it has to be that sentence or your name won't go into the hat, and you won't be in with the chance of winning. The hat pull will happen that same night once the results have been gathered, and if your name gets picked I will hastily contact you for your delivery address of choice. 

No postage and packaging cost will be necessary, but a donation to my paypal 'donate button' to the right would be kind. Better still, I will attach my address so you can send me one of your doodles, poems, stories, favourite recipes... if you so wish.

In the event that no-one bids for the doodle I will still place it into a sealed envelope, but instead of sending it off to someone, I'll leave it around and about for a stranger to "hopefully" find and enjoy.

Happy thoughts,

- The Wormling