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Everybody says you need to send CDs out by post with a presspack. That may be true, but here is a virtual presspack. Everybody says that tracks this long will never get airplay. That may be true, but this is how the music should be. Everybody says you need professionally-produced photographs. that may be true, but here are a few amateur snaps anyway. Broadcasters, Reviewers, Journalists, Bloggers, and all people of that ilk, you are welcome here. Read the pretentious blurb, look at the irrelevant pictures, watch the video "micromixes", form your opinions. In the end, though, it's all about the music. If you're not all about the music too, you're probably in the wrong place. |
The new album: Mimetophonic Windows released 31st May 2015Listen using this handy widget... BODY:MIND:SPIRIT (2012) more details, downloads artwork etc. | |
The previous album: BODY:MIND:SPIRIT released 1st Feb 2012Listen using this handy widget... BODY:MIND:SPIRIT (2012) more details, downloads artwork etc. | |
Album 1: 11 Bells (2008) |
Album 2: Under A Binary Tree |
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About the MusicWith soaring melodies, luscious soundscapes and intricate rhythms, Purple explores the boundaries between the mainstream and the progressive. The expanse of the canvas gives the music license to explore; sometimes driven, sometimes mellow, sometimes contemplative, always original. Using intelligent structures as the constraints and challenges wherein creativity can thrive, pictures are painted. Pictures of fantasy, pictures of ideas, pictures of feelings, pictures of spirituality and pictures of whimsy. And through all this runs a deep undercurrent of optimism, of the love of music and the sheer joy of creation. Blending the grand visions of Tubular Bells and Octovarium with the melodic tones of Pink Floyd, Camel and Yes, spiced with elements of many styles from folk, rock, blues, classical, "world" and beyond, and realised with bleeding-edge technology, Purple is a one-man instrumental "musical project" Yes friends, this is progressive rock. Not watered down, but the acceptable face of prog rock; accessible rather than extreme, still grandiose, still unashamedly self-indulgent, still complex and interesting, but not too demanding, not too esoteric, not too self-referential. To put it bluntly: it has tunes. This is what the die-hard proggers call "crossover prog". |
About PurpleIn a world where vocal gymnastics are celebrated over expression, where throwaway irony is what passes for "meaning", in a world where depth is conflated with depression and where shock is the stand-in for true art, in this pitiful world where four minute contextless nuggets of pyrite is all that seems available on iTunes, is there not a tiny corner where intelligent music, lovingly crafted music, spacious music can thrive? Is there not a small, neglected and misunderstood audience which will welcome a good old-fashioned (dare I say it?) Concept Album? Let fly your prejudices, but don't take my word for it: don't listen to the rhetoric; listen to the music. Purple is a one-man recording project, started in 2007 by Dan Hodgson. The project has released three albums: Want to get in touch? drop me an email at press@purplemusic.org Legal information on use of the music is available here |
About DanDan is the real deal: a genuine authentic middle-class white Englishman. Not only that, but he's an academic, a university lecturer in computing, and yes, he does have glasses and a beard, and wears t-shirts and jeans to work. No, he doesn't have a brown corduroy jacket with leather patches at the elbows but he'd be willing to give it a go if need be. He lives in a comfortable country town in the North-East of England with green, rural views of the Tyne valley from some of the windows, and has a white middle-class wife and a white middle-class toddler, with another bundle of middleclass noise on the way. He is 46. And so what could he do? If his roots were in New Orleans he could play Jazz proudly, if his antecedents were from Kenya he might revel in the complexities of the African Djembe, if even his dad had had the decency to be a miner he could have knocked out some credible folk music. But no, Dan is true to his heritage and plays the music of his heartland, the music that speaks out from his soul: AOR. Not only AOR, but progressive rock. It's the only decent thing to do. Dan is a "multi-instrumentalist". Primarily bass and guitars, but with a smattering of drums, a handful of percussion, even the occasional melodic instrument cannot escape his grasp. He has performed (in public) on triangle, cymbal, glockenspiel, piano accordion, keyboards, pan pipes, congas, bongos, penny whistle, violin, drums, bodhran, guiro, all manner of shakers and rattlers, African Djembe, all sorts of guitars, and bass. Lots of bass. Usually loud bass. He has played for worship in churches since the age of about 16 (he's now 46), and with bands playing Soul, Jazz, Rock, Folk or whatever he has been asked to do. He is currently in a ceilidh band, and a church music group. He has been attempting to do home recording way before it was feasible or within his budget, but now the computer has come of age as a virtual studio there is no stopping him. Purple was conceived as a solo instrumental progressive recording project in 2007 while he was ill, and bored. |