We have a date and place for the Gurdan Thomas release party of the new album ‘This Beautiful World Of Ugliness’ 4 lovely Englanders are coming across to play a series of gigs as part of the Cheeky Monkey Riverside Tour in various towns in Southern Germany – starting at the famous ‘Luftboot Festival’ in Amberg, Oberpfalz.

The release party (free entry) will take place at a beautiful Sandy Beach Bar over the Isar called Kulturstrand. At 7.30pm the barefoot dancing sounds of Tuba, Clarinet, Accordeon, Charanga, Ukulele, Guitar and voices will trip over and dance upon the water – but we are worried that 5 English men might tempt the DampGreyUKWeatherGod called ‘The All Sodden Drizzle’ to p*ss on our party – So in English tradition we’re asking everyone to

bring an umbrella, because if you bring one it’s bound not to rain – and if enough people bring their brollies (umbrellas) then the sheer energy of people-brolly power will send The All Sodden Drizzle packing!!

We might even run a competition for the best of brollies – probably with different categories;

most ridiculous, largest, cutest, oldest, most dangerous etc.

So if you fancy taking on a weather god and also listening to some anti-cool alternative bare foot dancing in the sand music – then come along on the 8th June… oh and don’t forget your brolly!

The English & their quaint inclement weather devices

The artwork for the new album

We’re delighted to formally announce that Gurdan Thomas have signed a recording deal with the German (Franconian) label Beste! Unterhaltung. We’re all excited in the Gurdan camp about working with them alongside their other great artsists such as Svavar Knutur, GankinoCircus, Sutcliffe and Ársti∂ir.
The new album ‘This Beautiful World Of Ugliness’ will come out on June 22nd in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux states and the UK / Ireland regions on both CD & Vinyl (we’re very excited about that!) – the perfect time for a barefoot summer release. We are already planning tours to promote it so if you’re not already join the mailing list to stay informed about the Gurdan Thomas troup coming to your area.

Michael working his magic

It was a busy day today – first I was recording Croque Messieurs and then straight from that I jumped on my bike and risked  cycling through the snow and ice to Michael’s mastering studio with my tiny memory stick full of our new album in un-mastered format.

In all honesty I didn’t have to do much apart from the occasional decision of whether I wanted that noise at the end, or comment on how wild the tsunami of ukuleles should be as Michael knew exactly what he was doing – he masters for big labels and artists in Germany.

It was interesting to learn that mastering for vinyl is different than just mastering for CD, little things like having to put all the bass sounds in the middle and being wary of low boomy noises (like mic pops etc.) as these things can cause problems with the groove in the record – and I don’t mean the dance-able groove.

By 6pm the master(er) had finished the first round of mastering the album and I’m currently listening to the results and I have to say it sounds amazing!

So tomorrow Michael will spend the morning going through the tracks, removing any pops, clicks and other strange noises and taking out any missed high frequencies, in other words making it sound great(er) then I’ll meet him at 12 and we’ll set out the order of the album and the gaps between songs etc. Then I’ll leave with a master CD and a big smile to take along to the pressing plants.

Whoohoo!

Lovingly handprinted with handcrafted linocut onto recycled packacking

Out now & available at all reputable Gurdan Thomas gig-merch-tables a limited edition handcrafted / printed with good old fashioned lino onto recycled packaging. Complete with a deluxe lightweight complete lyric sheet (unfortunately not waterproof – the shower-singer extra deluxe non-stain version is planned for release sometime in an alternative universe). So far Mr. Gurdan has crafted only 10 copies, each one unique due to the wonderful inaccuracies that are inherent to the lino-printing process.

Adam & Steve is an album completely self recorded in the Birkenau, Munich. There is a strong theme of thoughts on views on the world such as the afterlife, science, conspiracy theory and taking different points of view from the overtly optimistic to the most dark and disturbing places the human mind can sink to.

Released on Bärfuß Records (Liberating Artists since 2012)

We’ve been badgering away behind the scenes working on a new website. Here it is – although it’s still work in progress and you’ll find that if you come back later some things may have changed, new photo’s added etc.

We’ve tried to keep it quite basic and therefore easy to find what you’re looking for – there’s photo’s, videos, music a bio and some press clippings. If you have any comments we’d love to hear – perhaps you’re skilled with wordpress and could give us some advice. Anyway that’s it for now – enjoy!