Andrew Liptak from Carry You Away:

…Another artist, one of our favorites from a couple years ago, Tom Slatter, of the since metamorphosed We’ll Write (now called Comrad Robot), has released a solo album with a steampunk theme called Spinning the Compass. If you liked We’ll Write, Slatter has kept a lot of the same feel from that group with the same nerdish themes of machines and humanity…

Rob Weber

Tom Slatter’s Spinning the Compass is best described, I think, as acoustic prog-rock. From alternating measures of 5/4 to wildly chromatic key changes to rowdy (acoustic) guitar solos, all of the prog-rock elements are there. As a fan of Yes and ELP, these elements drew me in immediately.

SkinzNHydez is an artistic type I stumbled across via twitter. He lives in Canada and makes all sort of snazzy masks and wrist cuffs and similar, many of them in a Steampunk style.

The mask above is currently on sale on Ebay, and I happen to think it’s pretty cool.

It’s called ‘The Man Who Learned to Fly’ and it’s downloadable for free for anyone who’s joined the mailing list.

Have a look at my reverbnation page to hear and download:

Click Here!

Spinning the Compass has been reviewed!

(Interestingly Pete singles out Lines Overheard At A Séance for special mention, a song that I included as an after-thought to get the numbers up. I mean, I’m very proud of the song, it’s one of my favourites, but it almost wasn’t on there…)

Spinning The Compass is almost a metal album. All Tom would need to do is swap acoustic for electric guitar and the keyboard parts for more electric guitars and he’d be there. The fact that it’s not a metal album does allow the songcraft to shine, though, and it’s a treat to hear such deft fretwork without layers of distortion.

Tom’s dedication to theory means these songs are often almost too clever for their own good; he likes time signatures, and don’t get him started on the lydian mode. However, the unexpected quirks and lunges in strange directions never get in the way of a melody or a strong chorus, particularly on the excellent title song and the opener, Mechanism. Buzzing at the centre of this album is Lines Overheard At A Séance, all fuzzy keys and crackling drums. It’s a dark and hypnotic piece,easily one of the best things I think Tom has recorded.

His latest film project is currently called  ‘Oldroid’ and will involve a very steampunky little automaton.

I’ve used one of the early pics of this as a draft cover for Spinning the Compass. Once there are some proper photos of the whole thing, I shall steal one of these for the final cover as quite by coincidence Oldroid fits in with the theme of steam engine related body horror that runs through some of the songs on Spinning the Compass.

Here’s Joe’s site. Go Look!

Here’s a video for the song Tree Snow. The music is vaguely gothy minor key pop rock with a lovely chorus hook and even a proper pop song key change at one point. The video is all quirky steam-powered robot fun.

They have a (rather confusing flash driven) website, and can be found on CDbaby. Definitely worth a listen to.

Here it is:

The front cover is still probably a draft. It’s stolen from my brother’s new puppet/model/thing which can be seen here.

Here’s a recent song that I like: